Lessons · Teaching · the modifier attached to the wrong thing

A modifier attaches to whatever is nearest

A describing phrase modifies the thing next to it, whether or not that was the intention. A misplaced modifier sits beside the wrong noun. A dangling modifier has no noun at all to attach to, usually because the sentence went into the passive or changed subject after the comma.

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What it is for

This is the error that produces the sentences everybody laughs at, and it is also genuinely hard to see in your own writing, because the writer knows what they meant and reads it in. Test items are constructed so that the accidental reading is funny, which is the examiner giving you a way to catch it.

How to think about it

Find the describing phrase, then ask what noun sits immediately after the comma. That noun is what the phrase describes. If it is not what you meant, the sentence must be rewritten so that the intended noun comes first, or the phrase must be turned into a clause with its own subject.

Worked example

'Walking to school, the rain started.' The rain was walking to school

The noun after the comma is rain. The phrase attached to it, as phrases always do.

Fix by naming the walker first: 'Walking to school, I was caught by the rain'

Or turn it into a clause: 'As I walked to school, the rain started'.

'She served sandwiches to the children on paper plates.' The children are on the plates

A misplaced modifier, not a dangling one. The phrase has a noun; it has the wrong one.

'Only she read the book' against 'She read only the book'

Only is the most movable word in English and each position is a different claim.

Your turn

Name what a describing phrase before a comma attaches to.

It attaches to the noun that comes  the comma

The trap

Rewriting the phrase when the noun is the problem. The usual repair is to change what comes after the comma, not what comes before it, and candidates who rewrite the opening phrase often produce a second dangler.

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