Misplaced and dangling modifiers. They are similar, but not the same. Misplaced is when the thing your describing, is put in a wrong place causing it to sound weird or confusing. While dangling is when it’s not clear, or doesn’t make sense. Here are some examples. This one is a misplaced modifier.
“While she was jogging, Rose found a blue guy’s hat.”
In that example, how its written, it seems like the guy was blue. Since it says ‘Blue guy’s hat’ If you want it to make it so that the hat was blue, you would put it like,
“While she was jogging, Rose found a guy’s blue hat.”
Sometimes moving just a word would fix a misplaced modifier. Or you might need to move a couple of words. But for dangling modifiers, sometimes you need to add a few more words.
“While looking at the sun, the clouds started to rain.”
It’s not really clear who’s looking at the sun. Since ‘the clouds’ is right after, it sounds like the clouds are looking at the sun. So you need to add someone. Like add a subject.
“While I was looking at the sun, I saw the clouds were starting to rain.”
It’s sometimes confusing to tell whether it’s a misplaced or dangling modifier. Dangling modifiers are usually missing something, like a person. So it would make the sentence unclear of who or what its describing. When you fix a dangling sentence, it usually takes a few more words, or sometimes rearranging the whole sentence. Misplaced sentences are describing the wrong thing. So that it sounds crazy or weird. All you need to do is move one or a few words so that it sounds normal again.
Misplaced and dangling modifiers – Mini test
Fix the following sentences:
(Misplaced modifiers)
- They saw a bird behind the dog flying.
- Crying on the examination table, the doctor gave the small child his vaccine.
(Dangling modifiers)
- Raised in Texas, it is natural to like barbecue
- before finishing breakfast, the cereal was soggy
- At the age of 5, my father took me to Mexico
*ANSWERS*
#1 They saw a bird flying behind the dog
Now the modifier describes the bird and not the dog.
#2 The doctor gave the small child crying on the examination table his vaccine.
The modifier now correctly describes the child as crying, not the doctor.
#3 Raised in Texas, I natural to like barbecue
Now there’s a known subject and we know who was raised in Texas.
#4 Before I finished breakfast, my cereal was soggy
We now have a subject and know for sure that the cereal was soggy before I finished breakfast
#5 When I was five, my father took me to Mexico
The original meaning of the sentence before it got transformed would mean that when my father was five years old his own father took him to Mexico which is not what the writer was implying
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