Health & Fitness
Misplaced Modifiers -- a Pet Peeve
Misplaced modifiers change the meaning of a sentence ... often with impossible or hilarious results.
I have an inner editor who is a terror. She never shuts up, which makes reading newspapers difficult. Or hilarious. It depends in how you look at it. Here's a few gleanings ...
From a local newspaper account of an embezzlement: “Employed since late 2001, court records state that [name] …transferred more than $1.5 million from company funds….”
Comment: Good news: Court records are not among the unemployed.
Find out what's happening in Suwaneewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
From a report on Fox News Channel: “After two days pinned in the wreckage, her friends found her lost dog.”
Comment: In the wreckage, there were comparatively few places to look.
Find out what's happening in Suwaneewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
From the same local newspaper: “[Name] was concerned about the welfare of a dog that was chained to a fence in a neighbor’s yard without food or water.”
Comment: The neighbor should have been more conscientious in feeding the fence and yard.
From another local newspaper: “[H]is former employer found videos of a child engaging in a sexual act on a hard drive left in his desk.”
Comment: The obvious biological difficulties not considered, how did the child get in the desk?
What misplaced modifiers have you seen in print? Share, please.