Dangling Participle
Dangling participles are participles or participle phrases that are not placed next to the nouns they modify, causing great confusion, and not a small number of unintentionally humorous grammatical errors. Participles are modifiers just like adjectives, so they must have a noun to modify. A dangling participle is one that is left hanging out in the cold, with no noun to modify. For example:
- Looking around the yard, dandelions sprouted in every corner.
In this sentence, the phrase "Looking around the yard" is placed just before the noun (and subject of the sentence) "dandelions." This makes it seem as if the dandelions are looking around the yard. To correct the problem and give the dangling modifier a noun to modify, the writer might revise the sentence as follows:
- Looking around the yard, I could see that dandelions sprouted in every corner.
Since dandelions can't see, the sentence now makes it clear that it is "I" who is looking around the yard at the sprouting sea of dandelions.
