Questions e-mailed by Miss Mae, Forum member (July 27, 2011): Dear Mr. Carillo,
I came upon this article this morning and wondered if the sentence construction was right.
“Qatar, buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, is interested in staging the start of the 2016 Tour de France.”
It was from the headline of a report expressing that country’s intention to host the 2016 Tour de France (“Qatar interested in hosting 2016 Tour de France start”). I am not a sports fanatic, but I would like to understand if the placement of modifiers/modifying phrases in a sentence is just a matter of style.
Also, in a grammatical query I asked you last February 6, you preferred the subject “I” to be stated after the phrase “in fact.”
My placement of “in fact”:“I,
in fact, am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”
Your placement of “in fact”:“
In fact, I am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”
I still do not understand why you did that and would really appreciate if you could address my confusion.
Respectfully,
Miss Mae
My reply to Miss Mae:The placement of modifiers or modifying phrases in a sentence can be a matter of style, but the overriding consideration is the grammatical functionality of the placement. So long as the intended modification is clear and unmistakable, the writer can exercise some latitude in positioning the modifier or modifying phrase. The thing to avoid, though, is positioning a modifier or modifying phrase in such a way that makes it a misplaced modifier, a dangler, or a squinter (
When footloose modifiers wreak havoc on news and feature stories).
Let’s take a close look at the sentence you presented:
“Qatar,
buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, is interested in staging the start of the 2016 Tour de France.”
This positioning of the participial phrase “buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup” is preferred by many newspapers and news service agencies. Its grammatical virtue is that it identifies the subject of the sentence right away for the reader. This is a big plus in day-to-day news journalism, where immediacy in the delivery and understanding of information is routinely given high priority.
In less hurried circumstances, though, particularly in the case of feature articles in weekly or monthly magazines, this other placement of that modifying phrase is likely or more often favored:
“
Buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, Qatar is interested in staging the start of the 2016 Tour de France.”
This positioning of the modifying phrase gives the sentence what many editors call a “featurized” treatment or flavor. In fact, it’s often a good indicator of whether the story we are reading is a feature article instead of just straight news. We will also notice that when a feature article has a lead sentence written in this manner, the rest of the article will be told in sentences that often depart from the usual “subject + verb + predicate” construction expected from straight news—the better to deliver the featurized flavor of the story.
This positioning for the modifying phrase has a major drawback, though. It buries the subject—“delays” is perhaps a better word—so many words later in the sentence. In the sentence you presented, in particular, the frontline use of the phrase “buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup” delays the delivery of the subject by as many as 12 words. This makes it longer and more difficult for nonnative speakers of English to understand what the sentence is all about, and the longer the modifying phrase is, the harder it will be for those readers to understand it. Of course, this shouldn’t be a problem for readers with a good grounding of how the English language works, but you see, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines always keep in mind the level of understanding of their average reader. They call this specific level of understanding the “readability index,” and I remember from my newspapering days so many years ago that the typical mass-circulation English-language newspaper tailors its news and feature stories to be understood by a 15-year-old, high-school level reader at the minimum.
Now, regarding your question about the positioning of the adverbial phrase “in fact” in the following sentences:
Here’s how you positioned “in fact”:“I,
in fact, am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”
Here’s how I repositioned it:“
In fact, I am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”
Both positions of “in fact” in the sentences above are grammatically acceptable, but the two sentences yield different meanings. By positioning “in fact” after the pronoun “I,” your sentence emphasizes the truthfulness of your being the person who’s not sure about the matter at hand. I don’t think this is the sense you intended for that sentence. Rather, you meant to affirm the truthfulness of your not being sure about the matter at hand, and this sense clearly comes through when “in fact” precedes the whole statement you want to affirm, as follows:“
In fact, I am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’” In other words, “in fact” should modify that whole statement rather than just the first-person “I” that’s making the affirmation.
By the way, let me answer this question that you asked in an earlier e-mail: “What does ‘categorically deny’ mean?”
To “categorically deny” something is to deny it in an absolute and unqualified way. It’s to declare emphatically—often with a sense of outrage and righteousness—that an accusation is false and without any basis in fact.
