悬垂修饰语

hello grammarians hello Rosie hi page so in this video we're gonna talk about something called a dangling modifier so before we get into what a dangling modifier is we can sort of talk about just what a modifier is Rosie do you want to tell us what the definition of a modifier is sure so well one major modifier that you think of is an adjective so a lot of times a modifier is describing something else in the sentence right okay so it can be an adjective or an echo or a phrase or yeah an adverb - so a modifier is always supposed to come right before the word or phrase that it's modifying but when it doesn't do that that's what's called a dangling modifier so this can look something like flashing lightning and thunder the little bunny struggled through the storm so this sentence has a dangling modifier and the modifier in question is flashing lightning and thunder so the the phrase that this comes right before is the little bunny and flashing lightning and thunder is not describing the little bunny right I don't think I've ever seen a bunny with like lightning coming out of it or anything Rosie what is this modifier actually supposed to be modifying so the modifier is actually supposed to be not modifying the storm because we've got lightning and thunder flashing all of those things describe this storm right okay so we're really not supposed to have a dangling modifier like this so we need to fix this sentence flashing lightning and thunder the storm raged as the bunny struggled so this is all better the modifier flash and lightning and thunder comes right before the storm now right so this makes more sense we got rid of the dangling modifier it's not you know hanging out looking like it's modifying the wrong noun so if you're if you're doing editing or you're looking at a sentence when you take a look at a sentence see if you can spot what it is that that modifier is supposed to be describing and then just make sure that that noun or phrase comes right after the modifier right like in this example we had to pretty much completely rewrite the sentence it still gets across the same idea but we had to put the nouns in a different order so the modifier wasn't dangling anymore running around on his little hamster wheel Albert watched his pet exercise this whole part running around on his little hamster wheel is the modifier in this sentence but what comes right after it is Albert which I don't think I don't think he's the one running around on the little hamster wheel right so this is something you want to look out for and maybe rewrite your sentence so that doesn't happen right and we have a clue that Albert is not the name of the hamster or the pet because it says Albert watched his pet exercise so we have a good clue that Albert is probably a human and he's probably not running on a on a hamster wheel he shouldn't be coming right after that that modifier yeah exactly running around on his little hamster wheel the critter exercised while Albert watched right so this is how we made our change we we still have running around on his little hamster wheel at the beginning but then we sort of switched around the order of Albert and his pet so now we have the critter following the modifier that it's supposed to be modified by right yeah so like that is dangling modifiers and how you get rid of them they're words or phrases that describe another word or phrase and when they're dangling they're like in the wrong place they're in front of the wrong noun so when you have a modifier at the beginning of your sentence and it's set off with a comma like all of these are that's when you have to pay attention and make sure that the noun or a phrase coming right after the modifier is matched up with with the modifier so that it's describing the right thing right you can get some crazy meanings out of your sentences otherwise like the bunny with lightning so that's stinging modifiers you can learn anything page out Rosie out