If the rules of English grammar are carved anywhere, theyre carved only in butter. A lot of the rules are arbitrary at best and sometimes even silly. And its possible that you can violate many of them and still be considered a good writer. But should you? Like everything else, the rules come into and go out of fashion. Shakespeare could use double negatives, but were not supposed to. An educated person in the 17th Century could say aint, but not now. So, where does that leave us?
Im a writer-for-hire, so Im expected to know the rules and follow them. But I dont, always. Should I? Lets look at an example of a standard rule of writing. In this case, Im talking about modifiers and the things they modify. (Ill use some technical names, but dont worry about them. They arent important when youre writing, because youll recognize one when you see it.) The modifier can be one word like happy, or it can be words in a phrase, like over the hill or sitting on top of the world. The first example is an adjective, the next one is a prepositional phrase, and the third one is a participial phrase.
The rule were considering is: Dont separate a modifier from the thing it modifies.
Thats easy if the modifier is a single word, green, and the thing it modifies is parrot. You wouldnt write, I saw a parrot sitting in a tree green. Its pretty obvious that if you want the reader to know that the parrots green, you put the modifier next to the parrot. You could even write, I saw a parrot green upon a tree sitting, and the reader would still know the parrots green. Its just a bit more poetic.
Where we more often get into trouble is when the modifier is a phrase instead of a single word. For example, the phrase under a palm tree is the modifier in the sentence I stood under a palm tree and watched a parrot. In the sentence Today, standing under a palm tree, I watched a beautiful parrot, the modifier is standing near a palm tree. In both examples, the phrases are telling us (modifying) who was standing under the palm tree. And its clear that I was the one because the modifiers are right next to the thing being modified.
Now comes the fun. Groucho Marx said, Once I shot an elephant wearing my pajamas. That was either a very unlikely place to find an elephant, or it was a dangling modifier. When the modifier gets misplaced in a case like this, it can confuse the meaning. Thats the reason for the rule. It applies any time a modifier gets placed so that it seems to modify a subject other than the intended one. If I wrote, I once watched a parrot wearing just my old rain coat, Id have to say that Ill never understand how that parrot got into my rain coat. Anyway, thats not what I wanted to say. Oh, sure, I could always use the lame, old excuse, But you knew what I meant. Maybe so, but as a writer, its my responsibility to make it perfectly clear what I mean. Its not the readers job to figure it out.
In the New York Times, in May 2005, there was a picture of a duck with her brood walking along a road. Next to the picture was the explanation: A mallard that nested for weeks outside the Treasury Department in Washington led her day-old ducklings yesterday through Rock Creek Park. Agriculture Department wildlife experts escorted the new family to its new home in a four-vehicle motorcade. In this case, the phrase in a four-vehicle motorcade is obviously intended to modify experts escorted. Unfortunately, it seems to describe the ducks new home. Aside from any grammatical consideration, thats just plain sloppy writing.
So, this is a rule that needs to be followed if youre going to write clearly. Heres a handy trick when you think there might be a problem with a modifier in your writing. Just read your sentence out loud, and if it sounds like theres any possibility the reader will misunderstand the meaning, rewrite it to make sure the modifier is doing its job.
Article Source: http://www.Article-Hut.com - Article Submission Service
** Attn Ezine Editors & Site Owners **
You may reprint this article in its entirety so long as you do not remove the article source active link or the authors links.
|
