A laugh a day keeps the doctor away. I can’t eat raw apples, so I use laughter as my daily health routine. Fortunately for me, giggles are plentiful as I come across so many dangling and misplaced modifiers in all kinds of writing: formal and informal, business and personal, print and digital. They appear so often, they are popular and plentiful online. Unfortunately for the writer, the result can create embarrassment, confusing messages, and loss of credibility. So, what is a dangling or misplaced modifier? Let’s dig into what these errors are and how to fix them. They are easy to make, but fortunately, also pretty easy to correct.
What are Modifiers?
First, let’s review what a modifier is. As defined by the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University, a modifier, “describes, clarifies, or gives more detail about a concept.” Modifiers can be a word, phrase, or a clause and often function as adjectives and adverbs. You remember your parts of speech, right? We rarely have trouble with simple sentences like:
- I greedily ate a giant hot dog.
- Amelia cried when her beloved cat died.
But sometimes, we inadvertently create a faux pas when these modifiers are connected to the wrong person, place, or thing in a sentence.
What is a Dangling Modifier?
We end up creating a dangling modifier when a phrase or clause isn’t “clearly and logically related to what it is meant to modify.” The dangling modifier’s subject is often missing from the sentence. Oops! Often, dangling modifiers appear in introductory phrases.
Example
Dangling: Reading the B and B’s pet policy, our cat stayed at our neighbors’ house during our vacation.
So, what’s the problem here? Though I love the mental picture of the kitty wearing glasses while reading the pet policy, the introductory phrase is describing the actions of the cat and not the cat’s owner, who is presumably supposed to be the subject of the sentence. In fact, the cat’s owner doesn’t even appear in the sentence.
How do we fix the error? We need to make sure we identify the subject of the sentence and include it. Correcting a dangling modifier typically requires rewriting the sentence. We can leave the modifier the way it is and change the main part of the sentence so that it begins with the term being modified. The error can’t be fixed just by moving it to a different place in a sentence.
Better: After we read the B and B’s pet policy, we arranged for our cat to stay at our neighbor’s house during our vacation.
Here are more examples to tickle your funny bone.
Dangling: Driving home late the other night, a deer suddenly appeared in our headlights.
I wonder if the deer had a hard time getting a driver’s license. Ba-dum cha!
Better: Driving home late the other night, we suddenly saw a deer in our headlights.
Dangling: After years of neglect in our basement closet, I found my old teddy bear and brought it to my room.
Who finally let you out? Did you report the abuse to the police?
Better: I found my old teddy bear, which had been neglected in our basement closet, and brought it to my room.
What Is a Misplaced Modifier?
Equally troubling (and often just as humorous) are misplaced modifiers, which occur when the modifier is in the wrong place in a sentence and modifying the wrong term. Typically, it is too far away from what it’s supposed to modify.
Sometimes the term and the modifier are separated by only one word. This often happens when we use adverbs such as only, just, nearly, merely, and almost. When these words aren’t in the right place, the reader can misunderstand the sentence.
Check this out:
Misplaced: Sheila only donated $10.00 to the local food bank.
This means she only donated to the food bank. She didn’t volunteer or do anything else to help the food bank.
If the writer’s intention is to say Sheila wrote a check for $10.00, not $1,000, or $10,000, the sentence can be rewritten by simply moving the word “only” next to $10.00.
Better: She contributed only $10.00 to the local food bank.
Here’s another example of how one misplaced word can make a world of difference:
Misplaced: On her way home from work, Allison found a silver woman’s watch.
Whoa! That’s one glittery lady.
Better: On her way home from work, Allison found a woman’s silver watch.
The common solution is to move the modifier closer to the word it modifies.
Prepositional phrases are often culprits in the misplaced modifier world. One of the most famous examples is Groucho Marx’s comment, “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.” Marx was, indeed, a comedian, but we lay folk may not be trying to be funny.
Picture this one:
Misplaced: Dressed in a diaper and drooling, Grandpa read a book to his granddaughter.
Grandpa may, in fact, be in a diaper and drooling, but I’m guessing the writer meant the granddaughter was in that state.
Better: Grandpa read a book to his granddaughter, who was dressed in a diaper and drooling.
And one more:
Misplaced: The waiter served a dinner roll to the woman that was well buttered.
The woman must have put on a pound of butter—slippery!
Better: The waiter served a well-butter roll to the woman.
Why do these errors happen? Sometimes, we get lazy and don’t proofread carefully, if at all. In other instances, we might be trying too hard to create a complex sentence or write a sentence that’s too long.
What are some of the funniest dangling or misplaced modifiers you’ve encountered? Comment with your favorites below!
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