Dangling modifier

Dangling modifier

A dangling modifier, a specific case of which is the dangling participle,[1] is an error in sentence structure whereby a grammatical modifier is associated with a word other than the one intended, or with no particular word at all. For example, a writer may have meant to modify the subject, but word order makes the modifier seem to modify an object instead. Such ambiguities can lead to unintentional humour or difficulty in understanding a sentence.

A typical example of a dangling modifier is illustrated in the sentence Turning the corner, a handsome school building appeared.[2] The modifying clause Turning the corner is clearly supposed to describe the behaviour of the narrator (or other observer), but grammatically it appears to apply to nothing in particular, or to the school building. Similarly, in the sentence At the age of eight, my family finally bought a dog,[3] the modifier At the age of eight "dangles" in mid-air, attaching to no named person or thing.

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Dangling participles and participial clauses

Participles or participial clauses may be at the beginning or the end of a sentence, and a participial clause is usually attached to its subject, as in "Walking down the street (clause), the man (subject) saw the beautiful trees (object)." However, when the subject is missing or the participle attaches itself to another object in a sentence, the clause is seemingly "hanging" on nothing or on an entirely inappropriate noun. It thus becomes a dangling participle, as in these sentences:

“ Walking down Main Street, the trees were beautiful. ”
“ Reaching the station, the sun came out. ”

In the first sentence, the "walking down" participle modifies "trees," the subject of the sentence. However, the trees are presumably not themselves walking down Main Street. The participle in fact modifies the unmentioned speaker of the sentence, the one doing the walking (and finding the trees beautiful).

In the second sentence, "reaching" is the dangling participle that nonsensically qualifies "sun," the subject of the sentence; thus, the meaning is as if the sun came out when it, "the sun," reached the station. Presumably, there is another, human subject that did reach the station and observed the sun coming out, but since this subject is not mentioned in the text, the intended meaning is obscured, and therefore this kind of sentence is considered incorrect in standard English.

Strunk and White's The Elements of Style provides another kind of example, a misplaced modifier (another participle):

“ I saw the trailer peeking through the window. ”

Presumably, this means the speaker was peeking through the window, but the placement of the clause "peeking through the window" makes it sound as though the trailer were peeking through the window. More correctly, it can be written as, "Peeking through the window, I saw the trailer."

Strunk and White describe as "ludicrous" another of their examples: "Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap."

The author obviously meant the house was dilapidated. But what he wrote was that he (the speaker or writer, identified as "I") was in a dilapidated condition.

Bernstein offers another ludicrous example: "Roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour, the stalled car was smashed by the train." [4]

"Roaring," the participle, is meant to modify "train": it is the train that is roaring down the track. But the participial phrase is attached to the grammatical subject of the sentence, car. The writer is saying that the stalled car, which really isn't moving at all, is roaring down the track. Correctly written, the sentence would read: "Roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour, the train smashed the stalled car." Alternatively (but wordier): "The stalled car was smashed by the train, which was roaring down the track at seventy miles an hour."

Follett provides yet another ludicrous example: "Leaping to the saddle, his horse bolted." [5]

Did the horse leap into the saddle? That's what the writer said. But it can't be what he meant. Who did leap into the saddle? Presumably the horseman, the cowboy, Roy Rogers, or some other human – certainly not the horse, which was wearing the saddle. In this example, the noun or pronoun intended to be modified isn't even in the sentence. Correct: "Leaping to the saddle, Roy made his horse bolt forward." Also correct: "The horse bolted when Roy leaped into the saddle." In this second revision, the solution is to abandon the participial phrase by transforming the participle "leaping" into the verb "leaped" in the dependent clause "when Roy leaped into the saddle."

These examples illustrate a writing principle that dangling participles violate. Follett states the principle: "A participle at the head of a sentence automatically affixes itself to the subject of the following verb – in effect a requirement that the writer either make his [grammatical] subject consistent with the participle or discard the participle for some other construction." [6] Strunk and White put it this way: "A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject." [7]

Dangling participles should not be confused with clauses in absolute constructions, which are considered grammatical. Because the participial phrase in an absolute construction is not semantically attached to any single element in the sentence, it is easily confused with a dangling participle.[8] The difference is that the participial phrase of a dangling participle is intended to modify a particular noun or pronoun, but is instead erroneously attached to a different noun, whereas a participial phrase serving as an absolute clause is not intended to modify any noun at all. An example of an absolute construction is:

“ Barring bad weather, we plan to go to the beach tomorrow. ”

Modifiers reflecting the mood or attitude of the speaker

Participial modifiers sometimes can be intended to describe the attitude or mood of the speaker, even when the speaker is not part of the sentence. Some such modifiers are standard and are not considered dangling modifiers: "Speaking of [topic]," and "Trusting that this will put things into perspective," for example, are commonly used to transition from one topic to a related one or for adding a conclusion to a speech.

However, attention must be paid to the placement of participial modifiers within a sentence. For example, in the sentence, "Fuming, she left the room," "fuming" can mean only one thing: it must modify (the mood of) "she." Note that "fuming," when it's misplaced, can also become a dangling modifier, as in "She left the room fuming." In that example, the room could conceivably be "fuming."

Non-participial modifiers

Non-participial modifiers' that dangle can also be troublesome:

“ After years of being lost under a pile of dust, Walter P. Stanley, III, left, found all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club.[9] ”

The above sentence, from a newspaper article, humorously suggests that it is the subject of the sentence, Walter Stanley, who was buried under a pile of dust, and not the records. It is the prepositional phrase "after years of being lost under a pile of dust" which dangles. This example has been cited in at least one usage manual as an example of the kind of ambiguity that can result from a dangling modifier.

Another famous example of this humorous effect is by Groucho Marx as Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding in the 1930 film, Animal Crackers:

“ One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know. – Groucho Marx[10] ”

Though under the most plausible interpretation of the first sentence, Captain Spaulding would have been wearing the pajamas, the line plays on the grammatical possibility that the elephant was somehow within his pajamas.

Strunk and White offer this example: "As a mother of five, and with another on the way, my ironing board is always up." [11] Is the ironing board (grammatical subject) really the mother of five? Correct: "As the mother of five, and with another on the way, I always keep my ironing board up." Also correct: "My ironing board is always up, because I am the mother of five, with another on the way."

Usage of "hopefully"

In the last forty years or so, controversy has arisen over the proper usage of the adverb hopefully.[12] Some grammarians objected when they first encountered constructions such as "Hopefully, the sun will be shining tomorrow."[13] Their complaint stems from the fact that the term "hopefully" dangles and can be understood to describe either the speaker's state of mind or the manner in which the sun will shine. It was no longer just an adverb modifying a verb, an adjective or another adverb, but conveniently also one that modified the whole sentence to convey the attitude of the speaker.

Grammatically speaking, "hopefully" used in this way is a disjunct (cf. "admittedly," "mercifully," "oddly"), and is reminiscent of the German "hoffentlich," which similarly means "it is to be hoped that . . . ." Disjuncts (also called sentence adverbs) are useful in colloquial speech due to the concision they permit. Per Bernstein's Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins:[14]

No other word in English expresses that thought. In a single word we can say it is regrettable that (regrettably) or it is fortunate that (fortunately) or it is lucky that (luckily), and it would be comforting if there were such a word as hopably or, as suggested by Follett, hopingly, but there isn't. [...] In this instance nothing is to be lost – the word would not be destroyed in its primary meaning – and a useful, nay necessary term is to be gained.

What had been expressed in lengthy adverbial constructions, such as "it is regrettable that …" or "it is fortunate that . .…. ," had of course always been shortened to the adverbs "regrettably" or "fortunately." Bill Bryson says, "those writers who scrupulously avoid 'hopefully' in such constructions do not hesitate to use at least a dozen other words – 'apparently,' 'presumably,' 'happily,' 'sadly,' 'mercifully,' 'thankfully,' and so on – in precisely the same way."[15] What has changed, however, in the controversy over "hopefully" being used for "he was hoping that . . .," or "she was full of hope that . . .," is that the original clause was transferred from the speaker, as a kind of shorthand to the subject itself, as though "it" had expressed the hope. ("Hopefully, the sun will be shining.") Although this still expressed the speaker's hope "that the sun will be shining," it may have caused a certain disorientation as to who was expressing what when it first appeared. As time passes, this controversy may fade as the usage becomes increasingly accepted, especially since adverbs such as "mercifully," "gratefully," and "thankfully" are similarly used.

Merriam-Webster gives a usage note on its entry for "hopefully" in which the editors point out that the disjunct sense of the word dates to the early 18th century and had been in widespread use since at least the 1930s. Objection to this sense of the word, they state, only became widespread in the 1960s. The editors maintain that this usage is "entirely standard."[16]

Yet the choice of "regrettably" above as a counterexample points out an additional problem. At the time that objection to "hopefully" became publicized, grammar books relentlessly pointed out the distinction between "regrettably" and "regretfully." The latter is not to be used as a sentence adverb, they state; it must refer to the subject of the sentence.[17] The misuse of "regretfully" produces worse undesired results than "hopefully," possibly contributing to disdain for the latter. The counterpart hopably was never added to the language.

References

  1. ^ McArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion to the English Language, pp. 752-753. Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-214183-X The dangling modifier or participle
  2. ^ Merriam Webster's dictionary of English Usage p. 315, Merriam-Webster, 1995
  3. ^ The Least You Should Know about English p. 134, Wilson and Glazier, Cengage Learning, 2008
  4. ^ Theodore M. Bernstein, The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage (New York: Atheneum, 1985), 128.
  5. ^ Wilson Follett, Modern American Usage: A Guide (New York: Hill and Wang, 1966), 117.
  6. ^ Ibid.
  7. ^ Strunk and White, 13.
  8. ^ The American Heritage Book of English Usage: A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1996. p. 1. ISBN 0-395-76785-7. http://web.archive.org/web/20080728061355/http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/001.html. 
  9. ^ Bangor Daily News 20 Jan 1978. Reprinted with discussion in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage p. 315.
  10. ^ Brainy Quote, 2009, web: BQuote-62.
  11. ^ Strunk and White, 14.
  12. ^ Kahn, John Ellison and Robert Ilson, Eds. The Right Word at the Right Time: A Guide to the English Language and How to Use It, pp. 27–29. London: The Reader's Digest Association Limited, 1985. ISBN 0-276-38439-3.
  13. ^ http://www.emory.edu/marketing/docs/creative_group/Style%20Manual.pdf
  14. ^ Bernstein, Theodore M. Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, p. 51. The Noonday Press, New York, 1971. ISBN 0-374-52315-0.
  15. ^ Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Bill Bryson, p. 99, Broadway Books, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7679-1043-5
  16. ^ "hopefully." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2007. http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=hopefully (15 Aug. 2007).
  17. ^ http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/regretfully.html

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