Dangling modifiers - for the English majors and for the rest of us. Some chuckles

[question everything]

A local columnist who writes about proper and understandable writing.

Two examples that really got me laughing:

An appalling grammatical error pops up in the new Bob Woodward/Robert Costa book "Peril," which aims to make the case that Trump supporters are threatening democracy. And so, we return to that old bugaboo, the dangling modifier — a phrase not logically related to the word or words next to it. This, from page 10 of the book:

"[Paul] Ryan's kids back in Wisconsin were still young enough to spend time with him. Growing up, his dad had died when he was a teenager."

The reader who sent me that quote said of the dad, "Must have gotten an early start building a family!"

The one growing up was Paul Ryan, not his dad.

Also

"Squeezed by too many other shoppers, the woman refused to buy the tomatoes."

https://www.startribune.com/dangling-modifiers-confuse-readers/600102952/

[AleksS]

1. Yeah, I notice it a lot too. People aren't careful

with their antecedents. It can be confusing sometimes!

[Hoyt]

2. While incorrect, the two sentences made perfect sense together.

I always did well enough at grammar in school. But always wondered if the OCD instruction was at the expense of learning, insight, resolution, etc.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Overassignment of pronouns leads to ambiguity.

I've seen long, much-run-on sentences where "it" was used to refer to five different things in succession. From the same people who eschew capitals and punctuation because "it doesn't matter to the computer", as if unaware they are writing for human readers.