Does it really matter if it dangles?
November 20, 2010 @ 2:26 pm ·
Filed by Geoffrey K. Pullum under ambiguity, Prescriptivist poppycock,
Syntax, Writing
In his short but cutting review of Simon Heffer's Strictly English,
Steven Poole remarks that the book "condemns hanging participles yet
perpetrates a monster (on p165, too tedious to quote here)." What was
this tedious monster, I feel sure you Language Log readers are asking?
The sentence in question is the second one in this quotation (from the
beginning of a section; I underline the relevant phrase):
Partridge has a long entry in Usage and Abusage on the word got – he
could as easily have made the entry about the word get – but, if
anything, this unusually strict grammarian lets the promiscuous and
often thoughtless use of this term off lightly.
Without detracting from Fowler's point that the Anglo-Saxon is to be
preferred to the Romance at all times, the use of the verb to get in
an increasing number of contexts is not merely "slovenly" (Partridge's
word): it is downright confusing.
The "hanging participle" (it is more common to say "dangling
participle" or "dangling modifier", as I will do here) is the
gerund-participial clause beginning with detracting, i.e. this clause:
detracting from Fowler's point that the Anglo-Saxon is to be preferred
to the Romance at all times
It has no subject, and as one casts about for some noun phrase that
might be understood as its subject, one fails to come up with
anything. But does that matter?
Nothing in the preceding sentence suggests a candidate logical
subject; and the main clause subject of the sentence (which follows
it) is the use of the verb to get in an increasing number of contexts,
which surely cannot be the right choice. That is, he cannot surely
mean this:
??Without the use of the verb to get in an increasing number of
contexts detracting from Fowler's point that the Anglo-Saxon is to be
preferred to the Romance at all times, the use of the verb to get in
an increasing number of contexts is not merely "slovenly" (Partridge's
word): it is downright confusing.
What he means is instead surely something like this:
Without detracting from Fowler's point that the Anglo-Saxon is to be
preferred to the Romance at all times, I would nonetheless like to
point out that the use of the verb to get in an increasing number of
contexts is not merely "slovenly" (Partridge's word): it is downright
confusing.
The understood subject of detracting is first person singular: it is
Heffer who might detract from Fowler's point about Anglo-Saxon words
such as get being better than French or Latin words like obtain or
requisition, and he wants to forestall any such detraction but
nonetheless wishes to say that he thinks Partridge didn't come down
hard enough on the over-use of the versatile verb get.
Heffer has certainly written a classic dangling modifier, so we know
he cannot follow his own rules. And if the dangling modifier is a
really bad writing fault, he is guilty of bad writing. Certainly he
himself insists on its badness. He warns against this sin 64 pages
earlier, with a standard invented example taken from a grammar book of
about a hundred years ago (almost all his sources are close to a
century old; here he is citing C. T. Onions): After fighting the
flames for several hours the ship was abandoned. This is wrong, Heffer
says, because it was not the ship that fought the flames.
What he seems to be demanding is that if a subjectless
gerund-participial clause is used as preposed adjunct, or as here, is
the complement of a preposition (after) in a preposition phrase used
as a preposed adjunct, the semantically understood subject of the
gerund-participle must be whatever is the referent of the subject of
the matrix clause (here, the ship).
He gives several other examples that he collected himself. And
incidentally, in doing so he shows again that he is an utter
incompetent at grammar, because he gives this as an example:
The day before he died, David Cameron and his wife played with their
son.
This is an embarrassing slip. What he's objecting to is that the
pronoun he could refer either to their son (the right choice), or to
David Cameron (the wrong choice); there is risk of misunderstanding.
But this is just an ambiguity of pronoun reference, and it has nothing
to do with dangling participles at all. There are no participles at
all in this sentence. Heffer cannot tell his participle from a hole in
the ground.
But back to our main theme. Is it truly so terrible to have dangled a
participle as he does in the example about detracting from Fowler's
point?
The irony is that the answer is no: in the particular case at hand it
does not matter much. There are many semi-conventionalized participial
adjuncts (or adjuncts containing subjectless participial clauses as
complements) that seem just fine for any native speaker to interpret,
and are happily used by even expert and careful writers:
Speaking of sales, what do the third quarter figures look like?
Moving right along, this slide shows the third quarter figures.
Seeing as you're here, there must be some ulterior motive for the
visit.
Without detracting from Fowler's point, aren't some Anglo-Saxon verbs
overused?
There is nothing particularly wrong with these. They don't make the
reader do a double-take, or half-seduce the reader for a moment into
some crazy interpretation. They work almost as if the participles were
prepositions, and indeed, you can very roughly paraphrase all of them
with preposition phrases:
As regards sales, what do the third quarter
figures look like?
In order to move right along, let's look at the
third quarter figures.
In view of the fact that you're here, there
must be some ulterior motive for the visit.
Without prejudice to
Fowler's point, what exactly is a relative clause?
Do not
misunderstand me: I am not saying that dangling participles are always
OK, or that Heffer is wrong about everything, or that Heffer writes
badly. It is all a little bit more subtle than that.
Some dangling participles are definitely cases of bad writing. After
fighting the flames for several hours the ship was abandoned is
obscure and puzzling about who fought the flames; and some examples
are ludicrously misunderstandable, like the classic invented example
Trembling with fear, the clock suddenly struck midnight (see this post
and many other Language Log posts on the same topic).
It would be
perfectly reasonable for a writing guide to recommend that such
sentences should be avoided. The problem with Heffer is that he
doesn't know how to do that — he can't characterize or identify what
he's trying to warn against. He botches his job, and states an
over-general rule that he cannot even obey himself (despite all the
help that Random House copy editors could provide).
Although Heffer
does violate his own rule, the sentence he writes is a good
illustration of why that rule is too broadly and strictly stated. He
wrote a sentence that falls within the small range of
semi-conventionlized cases that don't sound all that bad to
experienced users of English. So under his own framing of the rule, he
is guilty; but through his incompetence he has actually been unfair to
himself.
This usage stuff is not straightforward and easy. If ever someone
tells you that the rules of English grammar are simple and logical and
you should just learn them and obey them, walk away, because you're
getting advice from a fool.
