Speaking as someone who began writing for pay in 1980, I am frequently appalled by the gross grammatical errors being committed at what seems like a growing rate by other people who write for pay. If they don't know not to say "Send the shipment to Sally and I" how in heaven's name will young people ever learn it's supposed to be "me"? (For a whimsical take on this mounting problem, see my February post entitled The death of me.)
It's bad enough that text messaging is doing everything in its prodigious power to eradicate the art of writing during what's left of my lifetime; I don't need paid copywriters accelerating the destruction.
If you don't write for a living you're forgiven in advance for not knowing that all those supermarket signs should say "10 Items or Fewer." You're also forgiven in advance for not knowing (a) what a dangling modifier is and (b) how to fix one.
A dangling modifier is a modifier that's left hanging, that doesn't have anything to modify. Here's an example I happened upon recently in a publication sure to surprise you (it sure surprised me):
Standing before a fawning crowd at a private fundraiser in San Francisco last April, Senator Barack Obama's usually finely calibrated rhetoric loosened up.
Who was doing the standing? The finely calibrated rhetoric? See what I mean? The opening participial phrase is a dangling modifier because there's nothing for it to modify. The writer got lost or changed her mind midway through her sentence.
To fix this problem the sentence would have to be rewritten more or less as follows:
Standing before a fawning crowd at a private fundraiser in San Francisco last April, Senator Barack Obama loosened up his usually finely calibrated rhetoric.
Ah. That's more like it. Now we've got someone capable of standing.
Maybe the writer wrote the sentence my way in the first place, then thought it would flow better the way it wound up in the magazine, not noticing the resulting dangling modifier. Whatever.
The really surprising thing for me is where I found it: in the opening sentence, rendered in extra-large type, of an essay appearing in the Columbia Journalism Review. Which pretty much gives you and me (not I) a free pass on dangling modifiers until the end of time.
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Surprising? Yes. Unexpected? No. Just listen to the newscast on any given day. Our newscasters are continually guilty of mispronunciation of simple words - many say "Febuary" instead of "FebRuary", "libary" instead of "libRary", and "mischievIous" instead of "mischievous" - supposedly, they're all journalism majors, probably with a degree. How can we expect people to write correctly when even the degreed among us can't speak correctly? Having been continually corrected by my mother while growing up, I thank god that I no longer say "where's it at?"
ReplyDeleteHear, hear! Have you heard of these guys? Nervy but I certainly applaud them.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-typo-guys-0521may21,0,6902266.story
Thanks for the link. I loved it.
ReplyDeleteGuilty as charged...and I have no good excuse or reason for it either.
ReplyDeleteSadly, our educational system cares little for teaching students to write well these days. As mentioned, the influx of text speak not only prevents them from learning, they have zero interest. Why bother learning to communicate intelligently when your peers are saying, "yo wut up? u want 2 go 2 da store l8r?" Yes, it pains me to only read it, but write it.
Great blog. It gave me something to think about since I know I've been slipping lately.
"Where you live at?" has become a staple question in my life these days...you get me?
ReplyDeleteMy personal pet peeve is "anyways", and though you rarely see it in writing, it's only a matter of time. :)
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm a frequent offender in speech (more rarely in writing, but I can't guarantee I never have), of the I/me problem. I have a mental block on that one. The harder I try, the more I say it.
This is probably why no one lets me proofread my own work, and why my blog is already riddled with errors. Sigh.
Thank you for commenting, Happy Chick. I appreciate your readership and input mucho.
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