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Dangling Modifiers 2644 Views
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Description:
This video explains what dangling modifiers are and, more importantly, how to avoid them. It provides a useful formula for using a modifying phrase to ensure strong sentence construction.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak in misplaced modifiers Allah shmoop you're
- 00:07
driving down a narrow road in the middle of the
- 00:09
night Suddenly a suicidal deer jumps in front of your
- 00:12
car There are two ways to break the news to
- 00:18
your insurance agent You could say a deer just hit
Full Transcript
- 00:21
my car windshield Or a deer hit just my car
- 00:27
windshield Well welcome to the wonderful world of modifiers If
- 00:32
you couldn't guess a modifier is a word or phrase
- 00:34
that modify another word or phrase Yeah sometimes if you're
- 00:40
not careful you can misplace a modifier A misplaced modifier
- 00:44
is a modifier that modifies the wrong thing A modifier
- 00:49
khun b a single word like only just or almost
- 00:52
let's Look at a couple of examples you could say
- 00:54
mike ate only venison or mike only ate venison In
- 00:59
these examples the word on ly modifies the word behind
- 01:02
it giving these senses completely different meanings if you say
- 01:06
like a lonely venison what you mean is that mike
- 01:09
ate nothing but dead dear If you say mike on
- 01:15
ly ate venison However what you mean is that the
- 01:18
only thing mike did with the deer meat was eating
- 01:21
He didn't cook it and he didn't buy it from
- 01:24
his local grocer You could also use a short phrase
- 01:31
at the beginning of a sentence as a modifier Here's
- 01:33
the formula short modifying phrase plus comma Plus the rest
- 01:39
of the sentence gets you there Just remember whatever the
- 01:42
modifying phrase were first who should immediately follow the comma
- 01:46
Here are some examples While you could say freshly cooked
- 01:51
lisa left the venison said cool down what you really
- 01:54
mean is freshly cooked the venison was left bite elisa
- 01:58
to cool them well you might be tempted to say
- 02:01
covered in flies the highway crew pulled the deer carcass
- 02:04
off the road What you really mean is covered in
- 02:07
flies The deer carcass was pulled off the road by
- 02:10
the highway crew When it comes to modifiers the smartest
- 02:13
thing you could do is pay attention to what you're
- 02:16
writing You don't want to misplace a modifier any more
- 02:20
than you want to misplace any leftover bam really bambi 00:02:26.47 --> [endTime] is that nice
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