Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Bad Seeds: Wow, It Can Really Do That?





I’d like you to take a look at the following paragraph:


As Wordy Bird perched there watching the sun rise beyond the nest, her belly rumbled, thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast. Her wings flapped faster, just knowing how good it would taste. When she landed, her head tilted, listening for that telltale rustle of worm flesh beneath the earth.

What is wrong with these sentences—grammatically? (Don’t worry, I’m not going to weigh you down with too much grammar-junkie jargon today.)

Let’s look at the first:

As Wordy sat there watching the sun rise beyond the nest, her belly rumbled, thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast.

This is a sentence of a kind that I see in writers’ manuscripts on an almost daily basis, so that means a lot of writers are making this error. Let’s break it into parts:

As Wordy sat there watching the sun rise beyond the nest,

her belly rumbled,

thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast.

The first two work together, right?

As Wordy sat there watching the sun rise beyond the nest, her belly rumbled…

What about this part:

…her belly rumbled, thinking of the worm she’d catch for breakfast.

Do you see the problem yet?

If you don’t see it yet, ask yourself this: who or what is thinking of the worm? In this sentence construction, it’s her belly. And apart from giving us a gnarly case of butterflies when we’re about to do something scary, bellies are not known for their capacity for intelligent thought.  

Now, if you go back to the second and third sentences, perhaps you'll see why I have a problem with those, too. 

Some of you, including those of you who have worked with me before or taken one of my classes, may pick up on at least one other (potential) problem when the three sentences are put together. Can work out what it* is?

* Hint: try reading them aloud. 

The moral of story is: Don't dangle your modifiers.

5 comments:

  1. The 3 sentences are too much alike. (thinking, knowing, listening? too many "ings"?)

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  2. The sun rose as Wordy Bird perched in her nest. She thought about the tasty worm she would catch as she heard her belly rumble. Flapping her wings, Wordy Bird flew to her favorite worm-filled leaf pile. She tilted her head listening for the telltale rustle of the tasty worm.

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  3. Her belly wasn't thinking, her wings didn't know anything, and technically, her head wasn't listening. I love dangling modifiers; they're hilarious!

    Very cool blog concept!

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  4. This really has me thinking -- me that is, not my belly!

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  5. This is great. I just bookmarked your site. Even though I teach English, it's always good to see how someone else teaches and explains grammar usage. We never know too much.

    ReplyDelete