Today's English Cri d'Coeur

Jerry has had enough:

It seems to me that the level of writing in newspapers has been going downhill. Perhaps the worst problem is the misplaced modifier. I saw two examples in today's edition of the San Jose Mercury News.

This appeared in an article about the apparently imminent demise of the
Hummer:

"The sale of the SUV brand with military roots to a Chinese heavy equipment manufacturer has collapsed."

And this, in a review of "The Crazies":

"It just so happens that they were the unfortunate souls in a rural Iowa town who drank the contaminated water resulting from the crash of a secret government plane carrying unidentified cargo in a nearby river."

What in the world happened to editors?

Unfortunately, as readers of this blog well-know, I make this error many times myself. So, it is good thing to have an editor with a fine-tooth comb go through the document first.

Speaking of misplaced modifiers, this essay gives some tips regarding avoiding their use:

Groucho Marx said it best: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know”. I’m sure you thought that was funny, but did you ever consider why it’s hilarious?

Prepositional Phrases and Misplaced Modifiers

You’ve probably heard the term “misplaced modifier” before. It refers to a phrase or clause that “acts on something other than what the writer intended …. The modifier is in the wrong position relative to what it should be affecting”. ...[W]e’ll explore the world of misplaced prepositional phrases, a kind of misplaced modifier. A modifier is a phrase or clause that describes something. A prepositional phrase is a short phrase that begins with a preposition. Prepositions include “in,” “at,” and “through.” A prepositional phrase gets misplaced when the writer puts in next to the wrong word.

Groucho’s joke is funny for the same reason that this real classified ad, laughed at in the book Sin and Syntax, is: “FOR SALE: Mahogany table by a lady with Chippendale legs”. Both sentences contain a misplaced prepositional phrase. Groucho intentionally put the phrase “in my pajamas” next to the word “elephant” to create the funny image of an elephant wearing PJs. Of course, the man, not the pachyderm, was wearing PJs. In the classified ad, the table, not the lady, has Chippendale legs. The writer carelessly put the prepositional phrase “with Chippendale legs” in the wrong place. Oops!

Sin and Syntax, which gave us the Chippendale legs mishap earlier, also quotes a student who once wrote this: “Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope”. This amusing sentence suggests that Lincoln traveled on the back of an envelope instead of wrote on the back of an envelope.

Also worth a few chuckles is this headline, quoted in Barbara Walraff's book Word Court: “Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Counter”. So these ladies spent 18 years at checkout? Hmm.

Lastly, we have this incorrect sentence, found in the latest novel by a New York Times best-selling author: “We found the address he gave me without difficulty”. I’m glad it wasn’t difficult to give out the address. Here, the prepositional phrase “without difficulty” has been misplaced. It’s next to “gave me” instead of “found.”

Why We Make This Mistake

As you can see, even the best of us misplace our prepositional phrases. When we’re writing complex sentences, it’s easy to inadvertently put our phrases next to the wrong word. We sometimes make errors with our prepositional phrases because we are trying to join up too many ideas at once.

As might be expected, misplaced modifiers afflict television too. I posted this last year, but once again, here's the BBC's lead into last year's Jaycee Lee Dugard story, where the announcer fails to take a breath and makes an entire subordinate phrase into a misplaced modifier.