Kimberly Lang

Battling the Grammar Gremlins

Modifiers, Parallelism, and Mixed Constructions

Kimberly Lang

Let’s move away from punctuation for a while. (Insert sound of collective sigh of relief.)

When people talk about grammar, we seem to focus on punctuation rules and subject-verb agreement issues. We forget (or don’t realize) that grammar is actually the structures that govern the whole language, not just comma usage rules. Grammar covers how you construct your sentences, making sure that your ideas are presented clearly and without confusion.

Grammar is the logic of our language. It’s what allows us to understand what’s being said. For instance, you can’t arbitrarily decide you don’t like the good old English structure of Subject-Verb-Object. The boy bit the dog is a very different sentence from The dog bit the boy. Your innate understanding of English grammar, including the Subject-Verb-Object pattern, tells you who got bitten in this sentence. English grammar has rules of construction that simply cannot be messed with—ever. (Bit the boy the dog just doesn’t make sense.) Without grammar, language is nothing but random vocabulary words, and random words don’t carry meaning effectively.

If English is your first language, you have an innate knowledge of what sounds right. You just know. That’s because you are accustomed to English’s patterns and constructions. When a sentence falls outside of those normal and expected constructions, you get confused reading it. That’s why problems with modifiers, parallelism, and mixed constructions have the unfortunate effect of forcing readers to wonder what, exactly, you were trying to say, and asking themselves if you really meant it to come out like that.

So let’s get them under control.

Modifiers:

Newspaper headlines are rife with modifier problems: WOMAN KILLED BY BULLET KNOWN FOR KINDNESS. SNAKE FOUND BY CHILD WITH TWO HEADS.

Bullets known for kindness? A two-headed child? Both of these headlines have a misplaced modifier. Modifiers can be single words, phrases, or clauses, but their purpose is to give us more information about something else in the sentence. When the modifier is misplaced, we apply the information to the wrong part of the sentence.

Tacky and falling apart at the seams, Jenny took the couch home for the dog to sleep on.

Who or what is tacky and falling apart at the seams? According to this sentence, it’s Jenny. We automatically attach this modifying (adjective) phrase to the first noun we hit in the sentence. The writer probably meant the couch, but the modifier is misplaced, and Jenny is insulted. There’s no easy fix; the sentence has to be rewritten. Keep your modifiers as close as possible to the words they modify so readers know what you’re referring to.

I have many books by writers I have met on my shelves. (Boy, my shelves are a popular place to be!) Based on our innate knowledge of English, we want the prepositional phrase that follows “met” to tell us where. On the shelves does tell us where, but it tells us where the books are—not where we met the writers. So you need to rewrite: I have many books on my shelves by writers I have met.

Misplaced modifiers often create absurd (and downright funny) sentences, but they can also create ambiguity:

The writing group I meet with occasionally helps each other solve plot problems. Do you only meet with the group occasionally or do you only occasionally help each other with plot problems? The sentence has to be re-written to clear up that ambiguity.

I occasionally meet with a writing group who help each other solve plot problems.

Or,

The writing group I meet with helps each other solve plot problems occasionally.

The difference between a misplaced modifier and a dangling one is while the misplaced modifier modifies the wrong thing, a dangling modifier has nothing at all to modify.

Being a parent of small children, safety becomes the ultimate factor when selecting an efficient mode of transportation.

Nothing in that sentence has the ability to be a parent of a small child, so the modifier being the parent of small children has nothing to modify. It dangles out there, alone, making no sense at all.

While folding laundry, the tornado sirens went off. (I wish the tornado sirens would come to my house and do the laundry.) Try: The tornado sirens went off while I was folding laundry or While I was folding laundry, the tornado sirens went off.

Because a dangling modifier has nothing in the sentence to modify, you cannot fix the problem by simply moving the modifier to a different place. After all, The tornado sirens went off while folding laundry doesn’t make any more sense than the original. Someone needs to be folding that laundry—we need an “actor” for the action.

Remember, a sentence with a misplaced or dangling modifier will often make perfect sense to YOU because you know what you meant to say. Cold proofreads or another set of eyes are often the only way to catch these gremlins.

Parallelism is a very hard word for me to say, but it is a very important idea in grammar.

Items in a sentence of equal grammatical weight or value should have the same grammatical structure. Take Dorothy Parker’s famous quote:

This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force.

Notice how the actions themselves are parallel in importance? Therefore the structure (to be tossed…to be hurled) is also parallel.

Here’s another example: We went hunting, fishing, and camped in the woods. All three actions are equal, but we have two –ing verbs followed by an –ed verb. This structure is not parallel. The correct structure would be We went hunting, fishing, and camping in the woods or We hunted, fished, and camped in the woods.

Items in a series should be parallel. If you start with nouns, keep all the items in a series as nouns (Symptoms of drug use include sleeplessness, anxiety, and paranoia.). If you start with –ed verbs, stick with –ed verbs.

Ideas linked with coordinating conjunctions (Penalties for plagiarism include suspension and expulsion from school) should be kept parallel, as should any ideas presented in pairs. This includes comparisons using like or as, and ideas using correlative conjunctions (either…or, neither…nor, not only…but also, both…and).

[Coordinating conjunctions and items in a series are discussed in the Gremlin article “Commas, Part 1.”]

Mixed Constructions occur when your sentence elements defy the laws of grammar and/or logic.

Try this sentence: For most drivers who have a blood alcohol level of .05 percent double their risk of causing an accident. (This sentence is borrowed in its entirety from Diana Hacker’s A Writer’s Reference, p113, for the purpose of illustration.)

Huh? We start with a prepositional phrase that really should have been a modifier, but then tries to act as the subject of the sentence. This is a case of the writer changing his/her mind midway through the sentence and forgetting to go back and revise.

Or this one: Terriers, on the other hand, are very small dogs that are also short-haired, but they are used in hunting by driving game from burrows and then being killed.

I’m forever grateful to the student who turned this sentence in to me. It’s the perfect example of getting to the end of a sentence without paying attention to how you got there.

Faulty predication is a type of mixed construction where the subject and the predicate don’t make sense together.

We need new dummies to teach the CPR class.

Hmm, calling the teacher a dummy is not a good way to get a good grade. And would you really want a dummy teaching something as important as CPR? We need to purchase new dummies for use in the CPR class.

Faulty apposition has an appositive not agreeing with its noun.

A software designer, a fast-growing career field, has a high entry-level salary.

A career field is a thing. A software designer is a person. Remember, an appositive renames the noun. As such, it must do so properly. Software design, a fast-growing career field…

[Appositives are discussed in the Gremlins article, “Commas, part 2.”]

The last type of mixed construction is both grammatically and logically incorrect: the “is why” construction (and its cousins, the “is when” and “is where” constructions).

The rejection letter is why I’m so upset. Rejection is when they break your heart. Rejection letters are where they break your spirit.

Rejection letters are not a reason or a place. Rejection is not a time. It’s illogical, and it’s wrong.

The sentence Cleveland is where I married my first husband is just as bad. While I will listen to arguments that Cleveland is, indeed, a place, the sentence is the grammatical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. I married my first husband in Cleveland is so much nicer. Simple. Succinct. Logically and stylistically clear. For my sanity’s sake, please rewrite all “is when,” “is why,” and “is where” constructions.

Most all of the above problems occur simply because your brain is moving faster than you can write. You know what you meant by that statement, but not everyone else will. Therefore, I want to stress—again—the importance of proofreading with fresh eyes.

Revising for dangling and misplaced modifiers, parallelism, and mixed constructions will make your sentences tighter, stronger, and more meaningful. Notice how revising these sentences would also cut some serious deadwood from your prose, making your writing flow smoothly.

All of which is very, very good.