Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.



This one drives me nuts! Unlike the William Safire “rules” I’ve posted before, you really should NOT do this.

Unless you’re entering this contest.

Here’s a sampling from the page:
“I found a dollar walking home.” I wonder where the dollar lives.

“Walking past the cemetery, an open coffin frightened me.” An open coffin walking around would scare me, too.

“Hopping from foot to foot, the crosstown bus came into view.” I didn’t even know buses had feet!

Another amusement source for these can be headlines.

Here are a few of these:
Dealers will Hear Car Talk at Noon—I’d show up for that. I wonder if David Hasselhoff will be there.
Juvenile Court Tries Shooting Defendant—I hope the court missed. Poor kid.
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim—Ouch!

I hope you had fun with these.

photo from morguefile.com



7 comments:

  1. Dangling participles--the one grammar lesson that made my students laugh.

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  2. Funny, Kathy! Think of the photo I COULD have used.

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  3. Hilarious!I'll be checking my work for these, you can be sure of that.

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  4. Good luck, Ellen. I can't usually find my own. Other people have to do it. I think it's entertaining for them, at least.

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  5. Laughing out loud, this post amused me.

    (Yes, I had to turn my speakers on to hear it.)

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