Mischievous modifiers

One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll never know.
-Groucho Marx-

This joke is one of the most famous example of a modifier gone wrong. Modifiers are among the most mischievous words and phrases in the English language. That’s because they often sneak into the wrong place in a sentence, and cause nothing but trouble.

Essentially, a modifier is a word or phrase that describes another word or phrase. For example:

• A green hat (green describes hat)
• Walking along the street, Steve felt the sun on his face (walking along the street describes what Steve is doing)

The problem is, if you put a modifier in the wrong place in your sentence, you can completely change your meaning. So much so, that your reader may laugh out loud. Marx knew what he was doing, after all!  But what is funny for your reader, doesn’t reflect so well on you, especially if you’re writing for business.

But never fear! Once again, we are racing to your rescue to show you three types of mischievous modifier, and to explain how to avoid them.

Type 1: squinting modifiers

Squinting modifiers are modifiers that can be interpreted two ways, leaving you wondering exactly which meaning the writer intended.

Eating a lot of chocolate rapidly makes you overweight.

So will eating a lot of chocolate make you overweight very quickly? Or can we get away with it if we just eat it slowly?

Eating a lot of chocolate will rapidly make you overweight.

Ah well. At least we asked.

Type 2: misplaced modifiers

A misplaced modifier has been put in completely the wrong place, resulting in a sentence that doesn’t make any sense at all.

I bought a hat in a clothes shop that was really too small for my head.

Er – how did you get inside the shop if your head didn’t fit?

In a clothes shop, I bought a hat that was really too small for my head.

Oh, we see now.

Type 3: dangling modifiers

Dangling modifiers are modifiers that have been placed so far away from the word or words they’re supposed to modify, that the whole sentence loses all meaning. Arguably, that makes this kind of mistake the funniest of them all.

Sitting in his basket looking sad, I felt bad that I hadn’t fed the dog since 7am.

Maybe you should stop feeling sorry for yourself, get out of the dog’s basket, and just feed him?

The dog was sitting in his basket looking sad. I felt bad that I hadn’t fed him since 7am.

Ah OK, so the dog was sitting in his basket. You should probably still feed him though.

So, what are the rules?

The trick with modifiers is to put them as close as you can to the word(s) that you’re describing. And that’s all there is to it!