teaching writing to kids

April 21 2021

The Unintentional Hilarity of Misplaced Modifiers

jbcheaney grammar, thinking, Tips, writing grammar, misplace modifiers, teaching writing, teaching writing to kids, Wordsmith

They’re easy to misplace. Not by getting lost, but by ending up where they shouldn’t be in a sentence.

More a punctuation problem than a modifier problem, but you get the idea.

By law, English adjectives are always placed before the nouns they modify (the shy, quiet boy) unless they follow a linking verb (The boy was shy and quiet). That seems simple enough, but be careful with possessives (nouns that show possession):

Did someone lose a silver woman’s ring?

Could it be that a silver woman lost her ring? More likely that a woman’s silver ring is missing from someone’s finger.

I found a camo boy’s hunting jacket on the playground last Saturday.

A camo boy would have a great advantage while hunting but be rather conspicuous elsewhere.

There’s an easy fix for those two examples: simply swap the possessive and the adjective:

a woman’s silver ring

a boy’s camo hunting jacket

Here’s another adjective pitfall. When a noun is paired with an adjective to modify another noun (it happens) the result can be a head-scratcher:

I want you to meet Mr. Jones, our precious metal specialist.

Can’t wait to meet that precious Mr. Jones! Oh wait—you mean he specializes in precious metals. Why didn’t you say so? Why don’t you just hyphenate the adjective/noun combination, making it a single modifier: our precious-metal specialist.

That’s an easy fix, but hyphens are seen and not heard (in fact, this example came from an actual radio ad that had me speculating about precious specialists). Rearranging the sentence will make Mr. Jones less precious, but more special:

I want you to meet Mr. Jones, our specialist in precious metals.

Another example: “Rare earth” is the name given to a class of elements used in electronics. It’s also an adjective/noun combination that can leave the reader thinking, Huh?

The company made a rare earth discovery near Shantung province.

All kinds of rare discoveries could be found in the earth, but again, rare-earth (used as a modifier) could be hyphenated to clarify its status. Or rearrange the sentence:

The company discovered deposits of rare earth near Shantung Province.

I guess it’s still confusing if you don’t know what “rare earth” is in this context, but at least you could look it up in Wikipedia.

So, adjectives are usually placed before the nouns they modify. Adverbs may roam more freely:

Sarah limply raised her hand.

Limply, Sarah raised her hand.

Sarah raised her hand limply.

Your choice! (You can put your hand down now, Sarah.)

But that doesn’t mean an adverb can go just anywhere and park itself. Meaning matters. For example,

Teachers who rarely laugh in the classroom have a negative attitude.

Teachers who laugh in the classroom rarely have a negative attitude.

These two sentences come to a similar conclusion (sourpuss teachers make for unhappy classrooms), but one emphasizes the teacher while the other points to attitude. The best fix is to experiment with the adverb “rarely” (not to experiment rarely with the adverb) and settle where you and it are happiest.

Prepositional phrases and relative clauses can modify nouns and verbs. They can also raise havoc when they’re misplaced. What’s confusing about these sentences? How would you fix them?

Mom brought Kool-aid to the kids in paper cups.

(How did those kids get in paper cups? And where is the Kool-aid going to go?)

The waiter brought a steak to our table that was oozing blood.

(Somebody bring a paper towel for that poor table!)

I saw a Fourth of July Day parade on the way to the pool.

(I hope the pool is big enough for all those marching bands.)

Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969.

(After that, the moon could hardly kept itself swept with all those other men setting foot on it.)

In these examples, all you have to do is move the phrase or clause. For example,

In 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon—

thus restoring his proper place in history.

For the most part, correcting misplaced modifiers is a simple matter of thinking it through. Take time to look at those sentences you’re willy-nillyly writing. You have a logical brain that will tell you if something is off. And with a little practice, you’ll figure out how to fix it.

February 9 2021

Of Hedgehogs and Semicolons

jbcheaney grammar, writing grammar, semicolon, teaching writing to kids, Wordsmith, Wordsmith Series

I see you there, winking at me, you coy minx. 😉 To life’s most profound questions, I add

Why do you exist, semicolon?

You just wink and keep on existing.

Some editors can’t stand them. Victorians adored them. Certain authors, even today, overindulge them. And many, many writers don’t know how or when to use them.

That leads me to my topic today:

The dreadful comma splice.

It’s one of my literary pet peeves. True, commas are more of an art than a science. In my experience with copy editors, half of their job seems to consist of removing the commas I put in, and occasionally adding the commas I left out. I’ve learned to do a lot of the removing for myself when I do my own copy editing. (For instance, should the comma between “in” and “and” in the sentence above be in or out? In, or out? You decide!)

I converted rather late in life to the Oxford comma, which deserves its own separate post. But I feel no ambiguity, absolutely none, about comma splices. Seeing one has the effect on me of chalk-squealing or knuckle-cracking. What is a comma splice? I’ll explain.

a) This is a sentence. b) That is another sentence.

No debate there. Each of the above sentences has a subject (the demonstrative pronouns This and That) and a linking verb (is). Also, each expresses a complete thought, mundane as it is.

Suppose, for some occult reason, we wish to join these two sentences. One simple way is by using a coordinating conjunction:

This is a sentence and that is another sentence.

Oooo-kay. Seems obvious. To raise the stakes a little we could introduce a contrast:

This is a sentence, but that is another sentence.

Interesting point. But the grammatical point is that a) and b) are complete sentences, with equal standing under the laws of grammar. They may be joined only by coordinating clauses such as and, but, and or.

Unless . . .

One uses a semicolon to join them.

This is a sentence; that is another sentence.

To the editor who despises the semicolon, I say, “Come on! This is its only job! Let the kid do its job!”* In this example, I like the semicolon form better than coordinating conjunction form, but maybe that’s just me.

One thing you must never, ever do is give that job to a comma:

This is a sentence, that is another sentence.

It doesn’t even make sense. Or rather, it makes even less sense.

What does any of this have to do with hedgehogs? I came across this link recently: “Our Top 13 Delightful Hedgehog Facts,” from the UK National Trust. Being a sucker for hedgehog facts, of course I clicked it. The facts are delightful, but the comma splices almost ruined it for me. Go ahead; see how many you can find. (And this from the Brits, who should know better!)

In conclusion, I admit that I’m one of those authors who overindulges the semicolon; it’s a habit I’m trying to tame. But surely there’s a time and a place for them; it just takes practice (and copyediting) to determine when and where. Just don’t try to sneak a comma in where a semicolon rightly belongs; there’s no excuse for it.

*The other use for semicolons is separating items in a list where commas have to be used, as in: “Mr. Pringle purchased pencils, paper, and paperclips; pansies, periwinkles, and petunias; and a puppy.”