The hangers or converter modifier is an ambiguous grammatical structure, in which grammatical modifiers can be misconstrued as being associated with words other than those intended or without specific words at all. For example, a writer might mean to modify a subject, but word order makes the modifier seem to modify objects instead. Such ambiguity can lead to unintentional humor or difficulty in understanding the sentence in a formal context.
A typical example of a hanging modifier illustrated at Turning a corner, a handsome school building appears. Modifying classifications Turning the corner should clearly illustrate the behavior of the narrator (or other observer), but grammatically seem to be nothing in particular or in a school building. Similarly, at At the age of eight, my family finally bought a dog , the modifications At the age of eight "hanging", not attached to the subject of the main clause. (and probably implies that the family is eight years when buying the dog, or even the dog was eight years old when purchased, rather than the meaning intended to give the narrator the age of the moment ).
Video Dangling modifier
Video converter modifier
Maps Dangling modifier
Hanging the modifier clause
In addition, modifying clauses are usually at the beginning or end of a sentence, and are usually attached to the main clause subject, such as "Walking down the path (clause), the man (subject) sees the beautiful trees (objects)." However, when the subject is lost or the clause attaches itself to another object in a sentence, the clause seems to "hang" on anything or on a totally inappropriate noun. Thus "dangles", as in these sentences:
Walking down Main Street, the trees are beautiful. Arrive at the station, the sun rises.
In the first sentence, an additional clause can initially modify the "tree", the subject of the sentence. However, it actually modifies the speaker of a sentence, which is not explicitly mentioned.
In the second sentence, the addition may initially appear to modify the "sun", the subject of the sentence. Presumably, there are others, human subjects who reach the station and observe the rising sun, but since this subject is not mentioned in the text, the meaning intended to be obscured, and therefore such sentences are incorrect in standard English.
Strunk and White's The Elements of Style gives another example, a misplaced modifier (another participle):
I saw the trailer peering through the window.
Presumably, this means the speaker is peeking through the window, but the placement of the "peering through windows" clause makes it sound as if the trailer did it. The sentence can be rearranged as, "Peering through the window, I see the trailer."
Similarly, in "He left the room", maybe the room, not "him", who nags, though no one might interpret it like this.
Strunk and White describes it as "ridiculous", one of their examples: "Being in a dilapidated state, I can buy a house very cheaply." The author clearly means the house is dilapidated, but its construction shows that he (speaker or writer, identified as "I") has been dilapidated.
Bernstein offers another ludicrous example: "Down the track at seventy miles an hour, the jammed car is destroyed by a train." This supplement is meant to modify the "train": it is a train that roars into the track. But the subject of the main clause is "car jam". The authors suggest that a jammed car, which really does not move at all, roars into the track. The sentence can be rewritten more precisely: "Roaring on a track at an altitude of seventy miles an hour, the train destroyed a jammed car." Or: "The jammed car was destroyed by a train, roared on the track at seventy miles an hour."
Follett gave another ludicrous example: "Jumping into the saddle, his horse bolted." But who's jumping? It seems that horse riders - certainly not horses, who wear saddle. In this example, the noun or pronoun intended for modification is not included in the sentence. It does not matter: "While jumping into the saddle, he made his horse ride forward", or "As he jumped into the saddle, his horse shot." (In the latter case, a non-limited additional clause is replaced with a limited subordinate clause.)
These examples illustrate the principle of writing that violates the participation being violated. Follett states the principle: "A participant in the head of a sentence automatically affixes himself to the next verb subject - which is basically a requirement that the author make his [grammatical] subject consistent with the participle or remove the participle for some other construction." Strunk and White: "The participative phrase at the beginning of the sentence should refer to the grammatical subject."
Hanging participation should not be confused with clauses in absolute construction, which are considered grammatical. Since the participatory phrase in absolute construction is not semantically bound to any single element in the sentence, it is easily confused with the hanging participants. The difference is that the participatory phrase is meant to modify a particular noun or pronoun, but is otherwise mistakenly attached to a different noun, while as absolute clause is not meant to modify any nouns at all. Examples of absolute construction are:
The weather is beautiful, we plan to go to the beach today.
Dangling Maps modifier
Non-participial modifiers
Dangling non-participative modifiers can also be inconvenient:
After years of getting lost under a pile of dust, Walter P. Stanley, III, left, finds all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club.
The above sentence, from a newspaper article, indicates that it is the subject of the sentence, Walter Stanley, buried under a pile of dust, and not a record. This is a prepositional phrase "after years of lost under a dust pile" that hangs. This example has been cited in at least one usage manual as an example of the type of ambiguity that can result from a hanging modifier.
In the movie Mary Poppins , Mr. Dawes Sr. died laughing after hearing the following joke:
"I know a man with a wooden leg called Smith." "What's his other footname?"
In the case of this joke, the placement of the phrase "called Smith" implies that it is a foot named Smith, not a man.
Another notable example of this funny effect is Groucho Marx as Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding in the 1930s film Animal Crackers :
One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas, I'll never know.
Although under the most sensible interpretation of the first sentence, Captain Spaulding will wear pajamas, a play line on the grammatical possibility that the elephant was instead.
Strunk and White offers this example: "As a mother of five, and with another mother on the street, my ironing board is always up." Is the ironing board (grammatical subject) really the mother of five? Less ambiguous: "As the mother of five children, and with others on the street, I always keep my ironing board." Or: "My ironing board always goes up, because I'm the mother of five, with the others on the way."
Modifier that reflects the mood or attitude of the speaker
Participatory modifiers can sometimes be intended to describe the attitude or mood of the speaker, even when the speaker is not part of the sentence. Some of these modifiers are standard and are not considered hanging modifiers: "Talking about [topics]", and "Believing that this will put things into perspective", for example, are typically used for the transition from one topic to a related topic or to add a conclusion for a speech.
Use "hopefully"
Since about the 1960s, controversy has arisen over the proper use of adverbs hopefully . Some grammars for construction like "Hopefully, the sun will shine tomorrow." Their complaint is that the term "may" should be understood as the way in which the sun will shine. To change the whole sentence to convey the speaker's attitude, they say, "hopefully" should be moved to the end: "the sun will shine tomorrow, hopefully."
"Hopefully" used this way is not applicable (see "Admittedly", "fortunate", "weird"). Disjuncts (also called adverb sentences) are useful in everyday conversations for the conclusions they allow.
There is no other word in English that expresses that thought. In one word we can say it's regrettable that ( unfortunately ) or lucky that ( thankfully ) or lucky it ( thankfully ), and it will be entertaining if there is such a word as maybe or, as suggested by Follet, hopefully , but it does not exist. [...] In this case nothing is missing - the word will not be destroyed in the main sense - and useful, no necessary terms are to be obtained.
What has been expressed in long adverbial constructions, such as "regrettable that..." or "lucky that...", is of course always shortened to "unfortunately" or "fortunately". Bill Bryson says, "writers who carefully avoid 'hopefully' in such constructions do not hesitate to use at least a dozen other words - 'apparently', 'maybe', 'happy', 'sad', 'lucky', ' fortunately ', and so on - in exactly the same way. "
Merriam-Webster gives usage notes on the entry for "hopefully"; the editor pointed out that the meaning of unclear words originated in the early 18th century and has been used extensively since at least the 1930s. The objections to this word sense, they claim, became widespread only in the 1960s. The editors argue that this use is "fully standardized".
But the "unfortunately" option above as a conflicting example shows additional problems. At that time the objections to "hopefully" became publicized, grammatical books endlessly pointing out the difference between "unfortunately" and "regret". The latter is not used as a sentence adverb, they state; it should refer to the subject of the sentence. The "sorry" abuse produces undesirable outcomes that are worse than "hopefully", may contribute to belittling the latter. Partners may have never been added to the language.
See also
- Double-giving
- Garden path sentence
References
External links
- Hope it fails to modify the sentence element. Initially quote Bryson's Dictionary of Displeasing Words
Article source: Wikipedia
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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