13 Don’t Dangle Your Modifiers
KEY CONCEPTS
A dangling modifier is not clearly connected to the word or words it is intended to modify. Upon close analysis, sentences containing a dangling modifier often seem illogical.
INCORRECT – After studying the hotel’s fines for damages caused by pets, our dog stayed at my mother’s house.
The opening – “After studying the hotel’s fines for damages caused by pets” – is a dangling modifier. The dog did not study the potential fines.
CORRECT – After studying the hotel’s fines for damages caused by pets , we asked my mother to keep our dog at her house.
This sentence more clearly shows who studied the potential fines.
During the summer, it can be fun to dangle your feet in the lake. It’s not a good idea, however, to dangle your modifiers in a sentence construction.
I’ll explain this concept with an introductory question.
The opening sentence in the flip card above makes it seem as if the celebrations completed their final essays. Celebrations aren’t people, though, so the original sentence contains what we call a dangling modifier.
As a side note, one type of dangling modifier is a dangling participle. That won’t be an important distinction in this chapter, but be aware that you may see the term dangling participle frequently used in other grammar resources.
In the flip card above, the phrase “After completing their final essays” dangles at the start of the sentence. The sentence structure does not tell us who is completing the essays.
Here are two ways to correct that.
1 – After completing their final essays, the seniors began celebrating.
2 – The seniors celebrated after they completed their final essays.
According to the Purdue OWL website, “A dangling modifier is a word or phrase that modifies a word not clearly stated in the sentence.”
In the opening flip card, the subject seniors wasn’t clearly stated.
You should now be ready for another question.
For additional practice, I’ll give you two more flip-card examples of sentences that contain dangling modifiers. Consider how you would fix them.
And here’s the second practice sentence.
And here’s a great closing example from proofreadanywhere.com:
INCORRECT – After returning from the dead, my sister took the plants outside.
CORRECT – After the plants returned from the dead, my sister took them outside.
MORE PRACTICE FOR PROFICIENCY
Below is an additional exercise based on this chapter. Suggestions for rewriting problematic sentences are on the second slide.
WRITING EXERCISE
1. Rewrite the following sentence to correct the dangling modifier.
Happy but exhausted, the victory celebration began for the players.
2. Rewrite the following sentence to correct the dangling modifier.
Cheaply purchased and quickly cooked, many college students like ramen noodles.
3. Rewrite the following sentence to correct the dangling modifier, and add a subject if necessary.
Having spent too much money to buy the company, bankruptcy was the result.
4. In two tightly constructed sentences, explain your key takeaway from this chapter. Do not use any first-person pronouns (such as I, me, my or mine) in your writing.
