Caution: Dangling Participles Ahead

I'm a bit of an English language . . . nerd? Enthusiast? Grammar Nazi? No, definitely not that last one—I tend to be a bit of a Laissez-faire Englicist. (As evidenced by my propensity to use words that are not actually words. Like Englicist.) I currently have at least three dictionary tabs open in my web browser. That being said, you probably won't be as excited about the following entry as I am. But if you are, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Public service announcement: I feel I ought to tell you that I've just discovered what a participle is and how it can be “dangled.” For many years now, I've heard people berate the dangling of participles, and I've never known what it is or how to do it. Fear no more. I will now educate you on the mysterious art of participle dangling.

Let's talk first about misplaced modifiers. (Keep calm, guys, this is going to be FUN.) Modifiers are words, phrases, or parts of a sentence that give us further information or description of another word, phrase, or part of the same sentence. This can help narrow things so that we better understand what the writer meant by the original word. SO, when we talk about misplaced modifiers, the word “misplaced” is modifying “modifiers.” Thanks to this word, we know what kind of modifiers we are specifically discussing—the misplaced ones. These modifiers can cause some confusion and sound awkward because instead of being placed near the phrase they are modifying, they make it look like they are modifying a different piece of the sentence. Observe.

Green and warty, the people saw the frog as disgusting.

Now, see what happened? You read the first portion of the sentence and thought I must be writing about wicked witches. Only after you finished reading did you realize I was instead writing about a green and warty frog. This could be avoided if I were to move the modifying phrase so that it reads

The people saw the green and warty frog as disgusting.

This eliminates any confusion over who is green and warty.

So, these dang participles—I mean, dangling participles—that I was talking about before all of this are a specific type of misplaced modifier. (For you logicians reading this: all dangling participles are misplaced modifiers, but not all misplaced modifiers are dangling participles. By the way, if I'm wrong, I'll admit that I always lie.) Anyway, participles are words that we would normally recognize as verbs acting instead as an adjective. An example of this would be a plunging neckline. Plunging is totally something that we could do—which, as we learned in our early language classes, is what makes a verb. However, in this case it's not a verb, but an adjective. What sort of neckline is it? A plunging one.

Dangling participles are participial phrases that are placed in such a way that it leaves you hanging, so to speak, and wondering what exactly is happening in the sentence.

Burned and disfigured, I looked at my cookies.

Am I the one who is burned and disfigured, or would that be my cookies? Well, given my history in the kitchen, it very well could be either. But let's pretend that my intent was to describe the cookies. In that case we can wave our magic revision wands and instead get

I looked at my burned and disfigured cookies and cried because I had once again failed in the kitchen.

(That last part wasn't a critical part of the revision, but I thought it might help me more clearly communicate the situation.) What I'm trying to show you is that by moving the participle, we have clarified what could have been a concerning statement. We can all breathe a bit easier—especially me—at knowing that I haven't suffered a horrific kitchen accident.

Because some dangling participles can be easily interpreted, such as Jumping into a lake, my article informed me, is a good thing to do when being chased by bees. Jumping beans, maybe, but articles? Hardly. Therefore, we automatically interpret the sentence correctly because the alternative is so improbable. For this reason, dangling participles have become somewhat accepted by all but a small group of grammar gurus who continue to insist on their un-dangling. Despite this traditional battle, the participle dangling continues to grow in popularity, especially among tour guides.

Looking off to the right, a blogger can be seen boring her audience by babbling on about obscure English concepts . . .