Dangling modifier

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In grammar, a dangling modifier is a misplaced modifier, a word or phrase that ought to modify one element of a sentence, but due to placement in the sentence, seems to modify another. (A modifier is a word that enhances or refines the meaning of another word. An adjective modifies or alters the meaning of the noun or pronoun to which it is attached. Similarly, an adverb modifies a verb, adjective or another adverb).

A dangling modifier is commonly an adverbial construction which, rather than modifying the subject of the sentence, seems to modify an unintentional target due to the position it occupies within the sentence, such as sentence-initial (at the beginning of the sentence). In an example from Strunk and White's Elements of Style, "Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.", the speaker presumably means, "the house being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy it cheap". In this example, the placement of the participle phrase "being in a dilapidated condition", seems to modify "I" rather than "the house".

In extensions to this, modifiers are sometimes intended to describe the attitude or mood of the speaker, even when the speaker isn't part of what he refers to in the sentence. Some such modifiers are fairly standard, and not considered dangling modifiers — "speaking of [topic]", for example, is commonly used as a transition from one topic to a related one. However, in a sentence such as, "fuming, she left the room", "fuming" can only mean one thing, it modifies "she".

[edit] Hopefully

In the last forty years or so, a major controversy has arisen over the proper usage of the adverb hopefully.^[1] Some grammarians began to object when they first encountered constructions like: "Hopefully, the sun will be shining tomorrow." Their complaint stems from the fact that the term "hopefully" dangles, and can be understood to describe either the speaker's state of mind, or the manner in which the sun will shine. It was no longer just an adverb modifying a verb, an adjective or another adverb as hitherto, but conveniently also one that modified the whole sentence, in order to convey the attitude of the speaker.

In common speech, "hopefully", when used in this modern fashion, is known as a sentence adverb (cf. "admittedly", "mercifully", "oddly"). For example, most listeners will interpret "Hopefully, John got home last night" as meaning that the speaker hopes that John arrived home last night, not that John got home last night in a hopeful manner.

One of the reasons the sentence adverb usage seems more acceptable these days is that its semantics are reminiscent of the German hoffentlich ("it is to be hoped that") which implies (in the context of the first example) that the speaker hopes the sun will shine. Furthermore, it is because of their conciseness, avoiding the need to put into several words what can be said in one, that the use of sentence adverbs is establishing itself more and more in colloquial speech. Per Bernstein's Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins^[2]:

No other word in English expresses that thought. In a single word we can say it is regrettable that (regrettably) or it is fortunate that (fortunately) or it is lucky that (luckily), and it would be comforting if there were such a word as hopably or, as suggested by Follett, hopingly, but there isn't. [...] In this instance nothing is to be lost—the word would not be destroyed in its primary meaning—and a useful, nay necessary term is to be gained.

What had been expressed in lengthy adverbial constructions, such as "it is regrettable that …" or "it is fortunate that …", had of course always been shortened to the adverbs "regrettably" or "fortunately". Bill Bryson says, '...those writers who scrupulously avoid "hopefully" in such constructions do not hesitate to use at least a dozen other words — "apparently", "presumably", "happily", "sadly", "mercifully", "thankfully", and so on — in precisely the same way.^[3] What has changed, however, in the controversy over "hopefully" = "he was hoping that …", or "she was full of hope that …", is that the original clause was transferred from the speaker, as a kind of shorthand to the subject itself, as though "it" had expressed the hope. ("Hopefully, the sun will be shining"). Although this still expressed the speaker's hope "that the sun will be shining" it may have caused a certain disorientation as to who was expressing what when it first appeared. As time passes, this controversy will fade as the usage becomes more and more accepted, especially since such adverbs as mercifully, gratefully, and thankfully are used similarly.

[edit] See also

• Garden path sentence, a stylistic pitfall that causes confusion in a way similar to dangling modifiers.
• Adverbial, for sentence adverbials commenting on a whole sentence.

[edit] References

1. ^ Kahn, John Ellison and Robert Ilson, Eds. The Right Word at the Right Time: A Guide to the English Language and How to Use It, pp. 27–29. London: The Reader's Digest Association Limited, 1985. ISBN 0-276-38439-3.
2. ^ Bernstein, Theodore M. Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins, p. 51. The Noonday Press, New York, 1971. ISBN 0-374-52315-0.
3. ^ Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Bill Bryson, pp. 242, Broadway Books, New York, 2002, ISBN 0-7679-1043-5

[edit] External links

• Dangling modifiers
• Hopefully as sentence adverb
• Hopefully fails to modify sentence elements. Originally citing Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesom Words