Misplaced Modifiers

Summary
Becky and Zack explain how you should position modifiers when you're writing.

Transcript
(Zack and Becky are fishing at a lake. Zack is holding a fishing pole in one hand and a smartphone in the other. On the end of his fishing pole, there is an old soda can. Zack posts a photo of the can on MySpace and gives it a blurb "Fishing today...I only caught an old soda can.")

Becky: Are you gonna spend your whole vacation on that phone of yours?

Zack: Well, duh! What would I do without my phone?

Becky: Fine.

Caption: Misplaced Modifiers

Narrator: Today, Becky and Zack are going to talk about misplaced modifiers.

Becky: In grammar, modifiers describe or alter the meaning of another word or phrase, like how adjectives illustrate something about a noun, or how adverbs explain the way you did something. A misplaced modifier is when these words are positioned incorrectly. That can twist the meaning of your sentences and make them sound awkward and confusing.

(Becky picks up her phone and looks at what Zack posted on Instagram. The post has a picture of Zack sitting next to a bonfire with a cup of a hot drink in his hand)

Becky: For example, take this caption from Zack's Instagram feed. He wrote, "Enjoying a hot cup of cocoa." Adjectives generally modify the word that comes right after them. Here, Zack's really saying that the coup was hot.

Zack: Wait...was the cup hot?

Becky: Well, I know it probably was, but you really meant the cocoa.

Zack: Of course I did. You must be a genius.

Becky: "Enjoying a cup of hot cocoa" leaves no room for confusion. Most times, our sentences don't have helpful pictures to go along with them. For instance, let's take Zack's MySpace status update from yesterday. He wrote, "I almost swam all day." In this sentence, "almost" is modifying "swam". So it means that all day long, Zack came close to swimming. But never actually swam...which could be, uh, false. Put "almost" next to the word or phrase it's describing. Zack didn't almost swim; he did swim, almost all day. "Only" follows the same rules. It modifies whatever comes right after it. For example, let's take this status update. "I only caught an old soda can." So of all the things Zack could have done with this can, he only caught it. He didn't dance with it, play chess with it, or see a movie with it. To correct this sentence, put "only" right before "an old soda can".

Zack: So...uh, single words need to have proper modifiers?

Becky: It's not just single words. Phrases can be modifiers, too, and they need to be placed in the right position.

(Becky finds a post on Zack's Instagram feed that has a picture of Becky eating a s'more by a campfire)

Becky: Here's one: "I made s'mores for Becky with extra large marshmallows." I believe the s'mores had extra large marshmallows, not me. You need to move the prepositional phrase closer to "s'mores". Even though the initial sentence sounded okay, it's incorrect. You need to be extra careful when you start a sentence with a modifying phrase. For instance, let's take this little blurb. "Ready to go at the crack of dawn, our day was one giant adventure!" This sounds like the day itself was ready to go. Whatever you're describing needs to come right after the introductory phrase. Who was up at the crack of dawn?

Zack: You and me!

Becky: That's right. We were. But we're not even in the sentence. When the word you're modifying is missing, that's called a dangling modifier. A simple tip is to place the modified word right after the comma. "Excited for our day of adventure, we were ready to go at the crack of dawn!" There are lots of ways to correct dangling modifiers. So try out different approaches until your sentence is clear. Squinting modifiers are another special category. You can't tell if they're modifying the words before or after them. For instance, check this post. "Becky reminded me on Sunday we'd have to leave." Did I remind Zack on Sunday, or did we have to leave on Sunday? We already know what happened, but someone reading this would have no idea. Let's change it to, "Becky reminded me that we'd have to leave on Sunday." See, now all of Zack's sentences are clear.

(Becky takes a look at her smartphone)

Becky: Ooh, except for this one: "Becky kept me up snoring all night." It sounds like you were the one snoring, instead of - wait a second, I don't snore! I don't, do I?

Zack: Whatever. If you excuse me, I'm gonna have a little siesta. All this fishing is wearing me out.

(Zack pulls down his fishing hat and falls asleep)

Becky: Yeah, I don't. Right?