A constant grammatical problem is that of misplaced modifiers; the misplacement of a word in a sentence can alter its meaning and lead to unintended messages.
The following quotations are all from various news sources (the modifiers are in italics):
“Richard Zanuck, the once-spurned son of the legendary Darryl Zanuck who carved out his own career as a producer,…“. The general rule is that a modifying word, phrase, or clause should be nestled against the word being modified. While it is likely that it was Richard, not Darryl, who carved out his own career, the placement of the clause adjacent to Darryl’s name creates an ambiguity that could have been avoided. “Richard Zanuck, who carved out his own career as a producer and who was the once-spurned son of the legendary Darryl Zanuc…” eliminates the ambiguity.
“The twin-engine turbo prop plane dropped off the radar screen and crashed shortly before landing.” The plane could not have crashed and then landed; what was intended was, “Shortly before landing, the twin-engine turbo prop plane dropped off the radar screen and crashed.”
“I saw the Statute of Liberty flying into Newark”. The intended meaning may be obvious, but as it is written, our Lady of the Harbor must now have wings. Better: “Flying into Newark, I saw the Statute of Liberty.” Wings jettisoned!
“Like many others in Los Angeles, the quake helped Mr. Becker to leave.” Read literally, the quake is leaving California with “many others”. Better: “the quake helped Mr. Becker like many others in Los Angeles to leave.” The modifier is now adjacent to the word modified.
“Wallin was the school bus driver in which Hillman and Ellington were passengers.” They couldn’t be passengers in a “driver.” By a small rearrangement of the sentence, the meaning is now precise: “Wallin was the driver of the school bus in which Hillman and Ellington were passengers.”
“The newspaper said that before being treated for injuries, General Mladic forced the soldiers to visit the wards.” The soldiers, not General Mladic, were the ones to be treated. It should have read: “Before being treated for their injuries, the soldiers were forced by General Mladic to visit the wards.”
You might say to me that in each of the statements above, grammatical considerations aside, you could understand what the writer’s intention was. My response to that is that if you are serious about your writing, playing by the rules is important. If 90% of the people who read what you write, do not really care about misplaced modifiers, 10% do. And, like it or not, while that 10% (or maybe its 30%, or 5%) might not make note of your correctPosted in Queen’s English / Latin LoversLeave a comment