Inspired by a discussion on one of my writing mailing lists, I’ve been thinking about misplaced modifiers. One of my favorite examples allegedly comes from a medical transcription (but I’ve also seen it credited to a police blotter):

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

If you don’t get the joke, it’s about to become a lot less funny. Modifiers—adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, even participial phrases—should usually come as close to the word they’re modifying as they can. While we can (eventually) figure out the man was bitten on his thumb, that sentence says he was “walking down the street on his thumb.” (In fact, it says the bat was walking down the street on his thumb. The bat’s? The man’s? The world may never know!)

A friend mentioned that in school, he had to do an entire worksheet of fixing these sentences, and ever since then, he’s been very sensitive to them. Dude, I thought, is that all it takes? That might be pretty useful!

For each of the following, look at the “modifying” elements to figure out why they are WRONG. Feel free to share your fixes or your favorite dangling modifier examples in the comments! (And feel free to laugh, too—they’re supposed to be comical. Sometimes.)

1. Sensing her brother was about to pounce, he bent his knees, ready to jump at her.

2. He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday doing the dishes on the sidewalk.

3. At the age of seven, his father told him the truth.

4. Running from the scene, the horror clung to his mind.

5. “As mayor of Park City, people often ask me, ‘[I forget the rest of the sentence, but that was an actual commercial. Agh!]'”

6. “At 26 ounces, you’ll find yourself drinking more.” (Another actual commercial)

7. “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. (How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.)”

8. We tiptoed over the ice in our heavy boots, which had begun to crack.

9. “McCance was found shot to death by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.” (Actual news article.)

10. “Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.” (Actual news article.)

11. “As a parent, the so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.” (Actual news article.)

12. “After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.” (Same article as the previous.)

Work better on paper? Download the worksheet as a PDF and print! Can’t get enough? Lots more examples to play with!

Photo by Ricky Bragante