3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers

3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers 3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers 3 Types of Misplaced Modifiers By Mark Nichol Poor placement within sentences of words that provide details can hamper comprehension. Take care to avoid the various types of pitfalls demonstrated in the following examples, which are followed by discussion and a revision. 1. The company has been an extremely integral partner for our organization over the past years, both from delivery and leadership perspectives. Because the conjunction both precedes the preposition from, the construction assumes that a complementary preposition will precede â€Å"leadership perspectives† in order to fully parallel the phrase â€Å"from delivery,† but placing from before both allows it to serve as the preposition for delivery and â€Å"leadership perspectives† alike: â€Å"The company has been an extremely integral partner for our organization over the past years, from both delivery and leadership perspectives.† 2. The photographs evoke a time when samurai swordsmen and silk traders found refuge from a bloody uprising against Japan’s shogun in California’s Gold Country. This sentence erroneously suggests that the bloody uprising occurred in California’s Gold Country. Relocating the geographical information so that it immediately follows the key word refuge resolves the issue: â€Å"The photographs evoke a time when samurai swordsmen and silk traders found refuge in California’s Gold Country from a bloody uprising against Japan’s shogun.† 3. From time immemorial, writers have drawn on these syndromes to tell stories, from Lewis Carroll to Philip K. Dick. In this case, an adjectival clause, a parenthetical phrase that provides more information about a noun, has been relegated to the end of the sentence, appearing to nonsensically modify stories, instead of being immediately adjacent to the pertinent noun (here, writers): â€Å"From time immemorial, writers from Lewis Carroll to Philip K. Dick have drawn on these syndromes to tell stories.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Grammar category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Cost-Effective vs. Cost-EfficientDeck the Halls150 Foreign Expressions to Inspire You

Overview of Amphicoelias

Overview of Amphicoelias Amphicoelias is a case study in the confusion and competitiveness of paleontologists in the late 19th century. The first named species of this sauropod dinosaur is easy to address; judging by its scattered fossil remains, Amphicoelias altus was an 80-foot-long, 50-ton plant eater very similar in build and behavior to the more famous Diplodocus (in fact, some experts believe Amphicoelias altus really was a species of Diplodocus; since the name Amphicoelias was coined first, this may one day occasion a historic renaming of this dinosaur similar to the day when Brontosaurus officially became Apatosaurus). Name: Amphicoelias (Greek for double hollow); pronounced AM-fih-SEAL-ee-us Habitat: Woodlands of North America Historical Period: Late Jurassic (150 million years ago) Size and Weight: Up to 200 feet long and 125 tons, but more likely 80 feet long and 50 tons Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Enormous size; quadrupedal posture; long neck and tail The confusion and competitiveness pertain to the second named species of Amphicoelias, Amphicoelias fragilis. This dinosaur is represented in the fossil record by a single vertebra measuring five by nine feet long, truly enormous proportions that correspond to a sauropod measuring about 200 feet from head to tail and weighing over 125 tons. Or rather, one should say that Amphicoelias fragilis WAS represented in the fossil record since this gigantic bone subsequently disappeared off the face of the earth while under the care of the famous paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. (At the time, Cope was embroiled in the notorious Bone Wars with his arch-rival Othniel C. Marsh, and may not have been paying attention to detail.) So was Amphicoelias fragilis the biggest dinosaur that ever lived, heftier even than the current record-holder, Argentinosaurus? Not everyone is convinced, especially since we no longer have that all-important backbone to examineand the possibility remains that Cope slightly (or greatly) exaggerated his discovery, or perhaps made a typographical error in his papers under the pressure of constant, long-distance scrutiny by Marsh and others in his antagonistic camp. Like another supposedly enormous sauropod, Bruhathkayosaurus, A. fragilis is only provisionally the world-champion dinosaur heavyweight, pending the discovery of more convincing fossil evidence.