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Dangling Participles and Other Danglers

Modifying phrases should point clearly to the thing they’re modifying. Usually, this means they sit next to or very near the phrase or clause they modify. When that’s not the case, the error is called a dangler or a dangling modifying phrase. When the modifying phrase is a participial phrase, hinged on an -ing participle, the error is sometimes called a dangling participle.

Humming a happy tune, the street seemed more cheerful than usual on Dave’s walk to work.

In the above example, the introductory phrase is dangling because the noun phrase it’s closest to is the street, suggesting the street was humming. And because this dangler hinges on the participle humming, it’s a dangling participle.

Prepositional phrases are often left dangling, too.

With children in tow, the park offers great family fun.

Noun phrases can dangle, too. In the following example, the underlined noun phrase seems to suggest the piano is the virtuoso.

A true virtuoso, the piano rang out its approval of Marilyn’s playing.

Fixing a dangler is sometimes a simple matter of moving the modifying phrase closer to the thing it modifies.

Instead of

Humming a happy tune, the street seemed more cheerful than usual as Dave walked to work.

Change to

The street seemed more cheerful than usual as Dave, humming a happy tune, walked to work.

Other times, minor tweaks to the modifying phrase can clear up the sentence.

Instead of

With children in tow, the park offers great family fun.

Change to

For families with children in tow, the park offers great fun.

But for some danglers, it’s necessary to overhaul the original passage.

Marilyn was a true virtuoso. The piano rang out its approval of her playing.

Avoid danglers by keeping your modifying phrases as close as possible to the noun phrase or other sentence element that they modify.