Favorite Grammatical Errors

Favorite Grammatical Errors
Episode One

One of my favorite grammatical errors is the misplaced or dangling modifier. This is the error that sometimes makes writers into unintentional comedians.

Here’s an example:

“Racing toward class, my book flew out of my backpack.”

Sound okay to you? Read it again: the sentence is written as if the book is racing toward class, instead of the student.

Here’s a correction, which clarifies the subject of the opening phrase:

“As I raced toward class, my book flew out of my backpack.”

I still laugh about one of my favorite examples from my graduate student days, when a new student wrote about entering her first college classroom:

“Walking into the class, twelve pairs of eyes turned toward me.”

Wow, I didn’t know eyeballs had legs! It’s sure creepy how they walked into the class room!

What she should have written: “As I walked into the classroom, twelve pairs of eyes turned toward me.” Less goofy, and certainly less scary!

Are English teachers the only ones who care about such things? I don’t think so: most of us like to make people laugh on purpose, rather than by accident!

Dr. Norman Prentiss
English Department