Dangling Participles
Dangling Participle Worksheet: 100 "Puzzles" with Solutions How to Use Active & Passive Voice Dangling participles create confusion in a sentence and even unintended humor. You should avoid them by changing the way you structure your sentences. "What is a participle?"A participle is an adjective that ends with “-ing” or “-ed”. Misplacement of a participle in a sentence leads to misunderstandings, and sometimes, unintended humor and embarrassment on the part of the writer. You should eliminate dangling participles from your writing if you want to communicate your message across without any errors and want to be taken seriously by your readers. A Puzzle…Every sentence with a dangling participle is really a puzzle since the true meaning is twisted out of context. Here is a classic example: “After being diced, the cook added the onion to the omelet.”What a PUZZLE – the cook is diced up!? Due to the dangling participle, it reads like the cook is the one who was diced (unintended humor) whereas it’s actually the onion that went into the skillet. That happens because we have misplaced the participle “being” (of the verb to be). In this sentence the “being” is “dangling” out there where it does not belong. Why does such misunderstanding happen? Because a participle modifies the very FIRST NOUN that follows it. Since COOK immediately follows BEING chopped, “being” modifies the word “cook” instead of the “onion.” …With a SolutionTo correct this situation you need to bring “being diced” RIGHT NEXT TO the noun to which it belongs, “onion”: “The cook added the onion to the omelet after dicing it.” And that’s your SOLUTION. The case of the “Hidden Subject”There is a second kind of “dangling participle” error that happens when we use verb participles that depict MENTAL FUNCTIONS like “considering,” “reflecting,” “thinking through,” “believing,” “pondering,” “deliberating,” “forgetting,” “ignoring,” etc. The following example illustrates why we call this an error arising out of a “hidden subject”: “Recalling the misery that fascism has brought to Europe in the 20th century, its popularity among some political fringe groups is such an enigma today.” Here, the participle is RECALLING. The first noun that follows the first participle clause is POPULARITY. Hence the sentence reads like popularity did some recalling. That of course does not make sense since WE are the ones who do the recalling. “We” is the hidden subject here. If we make it explicit, the sentence will be saved. So here is the solution: “When we recall the misery that fascism has brought to Europe in the 20th century, we are puzzled by its popularity among some political fringe groups today.” Or: “Recalling the misery that fascism has brought to Europe in the 20th century, we are puzzled by its popularity among some political fringe groups today.” To avoid this mistake, always spell out the subject of the sentence explicitly and do not hide it under a clause that contains a participle. Return from "Dangling Participles" to HOW TO WRITE ANYTHING home page Dangling Participle Worksheet: 100 "Puzzles" with Solutions
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About This E-BookThe dangling participle sentences in this special report are mostly taken from current news stories about real world events to keep the students engaged with the content. An ideal exercise set both for the students who are learning English and the teachers who would like to offer lively fresh examples to their students about the correct way to form a sentence without dangling participles. A true time saver and a useful teaching aid for teachers. With this worksheet, you can concentrate more on your teaching than waste time trying to come up with good examples of a dangling participle. With 100 great examples, you won’t repeat yourself in class anytime soon either. Each exercise sentence in this special report is followed by its “solution,” that is, the proper way the same sentence should’ve been constructed in the first place. If you’d like to make a guess at the solution yourself, use a sheet of paper to cover the answer and then try to come up with a solution yourself. Then uncover the solution and compare yours to the proposed answer. Download MethodAfter you pay through PayPal, we’ll send you an automatic download link. This may take a minute or two. Thanks for your patience. NOTE 1: The automatic download link will expire in 24 hours. Please download your e-book within 24 hours after ordering. Thank you. NOTE 2: You will need (free) Adobe Reader to read this PDF file. You can download it from http://get.adobe.com/reader/ Click the BUY NOW button to display our secure PayPal shopping cart:
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