Can you find in exactly 75 seconds the subtle yet strongly subversive misplaced modifier in this glowing print ad of a movie star’s testimonial for a skin-care specialist? “I swear, the touch of [name of specialist] really works like magic! I’ve tried other laser treatments before but I love [his] Laser Hair Removal the most… No need to look elsewhere for me. I trust [him] completely.”
Still haven’t found the misplaced modifier? OK, it’s “for me” in the fourth sentence, “No need to look elsewhere
for me.” It makes that sentence absurdly tell us where to look for the movie star. But once that misplaced modifier is reined in, we find that it was actually the movie star who decided not to look for any other skin-scare specialist, “No need
for me to look elsewhere”
A
misplaced modifier is one of the three major forms of footloose modifiers. The second form is the
dangling modifier, which is a word or phrase that modifies a word not clearly stated in the sentence. The third is the
squinting modifier; we simply can’t figure out which word is being modified because the writer’s intention isn’t clear.
Danglers commonly come in the form of modifying phrases or clauses that have nothing to modify because there’s no logical doer of the action, as in “By calling in the support of staunch allies, the impeachment proceedings were effectively scuttled.” The sentence evokes the absurd notion that it was the impeachment proceedings that called in the support. When the doer of the action is clearly identified, the dangle disappears in the modifying phrase: “By calling in the support of staunch allies,
the President’s operatives effectively scuttled the impeachment proceedings.”
Now take this dangling “when” phrase: “When taking a summer vacation, my favorite getaway destination is Boracay Beach.” Here, the sentence gives the peculiar idea that the getaway destination is the one taking a summer vacation. That dangle vanishes when the first-person “I” is provided as the subject of the main clause: “When taking a summer vacation,
I go to Boracay Beach—it’s my favorite getaway destination.”
Now let’s take up
squinting modifiers, or those footloose modifiers that are perceived to modify either the word before them or the word after them. Here’s a prototype squinter: “Speaking in English
clearly establishes your ascendancy over the other job applicants.” The adverb “clearly” squints because we can’t decide whether “it is speaking in English” or “it is speaking in English clearly” that establishes the ascendancy.
Two simple rewrites can eliminate that squint: “Clearly speaking in English will establish your ascendancy over the other job applicants.” “By speaking in English, you can clearly establish your ascendancy over the other job applicants.”
But sometimes the squint can be so unusual as to defy such simple reconstructions, as in this mobile phone service print ad: “‘A PC in every home’ is what Bill Gates envisioned
as a fresh college dropout.” This inverted sentence bewilders because the modifying phrase “as a fresh college dropout” seems not so much to modify the noun “Bill Gates,” which it should, as to modify “a PC in every home” instead.
We can get rid of that squint by reconstructing the sentence in three ways: “What Bill Gates envisioned
when he was a fresh college dropout was ‘a PC in every home’.” “
As a fresh college dropout, Bill Gates envisioned ‘a PC in every home’.” “Gates envisioned ‘a PC in every home’
when he was a fresh college dropout.”
Indeed, to get rid of squinters, simply follow this time-honored rule for dealing with all footloose modifiers:
always position a modifying word or phrase as close as possible to the noun it modifies. It’s remarkably effective.
This essay, 2113th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the August 25, 2022 digital edition of The Manila Times
, ©2022 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.Read this essay online in
The Manila Times:
“Reining in those footloose modifiers”(Next week:
“The strange grammar of ‘need’ as modal auxiliary”) September 1, 2022
Visit Jose Carillo’s English Forum, http://josecarilloforum.com. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter and e-mail me at j8carillo@yahoo.com.
