Danglers gone wild

With its bendy grammar rules and bottomless vocabulary pit, English is a playground for the verbal daredevils.

How boring would life be if we all spoke perfect English? One particularly amusing mix-up is the dangling modifier, a phrase that means something other than intended because it’s in the wrong place or missing key words. So how do you spot these silly head-scratchers?

A modifier (whether a word or a phrase) is a descriptive, but optional, part of a sentence. If you leave a modifier out, your sentence will still be grammatically correct. But when your modifier is in the wrong place, it dangles and ends up describing the wrong thing. Phrases are the most dangerous danglers, as they’ll hitch a ride with the nearest word – and leave readers’ heads spinning.

Danglers are often hard to spot at first, but once you know what to look for you’ll find them hanging around everywhere. They often show up at the beginning of a sentence. For example, George W. Bush once said, “As an evil dictator, I despise Saddam Hussein.” While he may have been notoriously unpopular, the former US president probably didn’t intend to call himself an evil dictator.

Here are some other great examples of unintentional nonsense:

Gently toasted and smothered in cream cheese, my friend loved the bagel. Er… so is the friend toasted and covered in dairy products? Hope not. This sentence might be funny, but it’s definitely not coherent. Fortunately, it’s easy to fix: My friend loved the bagel, which was toasted and smothered in cream cheese.

Born at the age of 43, the baby was a great comfort to Mrs. Smith. A woman gave birth to a 43-year-old baby!? Unlikely. Again, it’s simple to rearrange: The baby, born when Mrs. Smith was 43, was a great comfort to her.

Overweight and flabby, the vet says our cat needs to exercise. Poor vet. To put it right, simply move the modifier: The vet says our overweight and flabby cat needs to exercise.

Miraculously he watched as the mechanic repaired his car with a balloon. The miraculous part of this story is certainly not that a man was watching. How about this: He watched as the mechanic miraculously repaired his car with a balloon. Make more sense?