What is "dangling modifier"

n. (context grammar English) A word or clause that modifies another word or clause ambiguously, possibly causing confusion with regard to the speaker's intended meaning.

n. a word or phrase apparently modifying an unintended word because of its placement in a sentence: e.g., `when young' in `when young, circuses appeal to all of us' [syn: misplaced modifier]

A dangling modifier is an ambiguous grammatical construct, whereby a grammatical modifier could be misinterpreted as being associated with a word other than the one intended or with no particular word at all. For example, a writer may have meant to modify the subject, but word order makes the modifier seem to modify an object instead. Such ambiguities can lead to unintentional humor or difficulty in understanding a sentence in formal contexts.

A typical example of a dangling modifier is illustrated in Turning the corner, a handsome school building appeared. The modifying clause Turning the corner is clearly supposed to describe the behavior of the narrator (or other observer), but grammatically it appears to apply to nothing in particular or to the school building. Similarly, in At the age of eight, my family finally bought a dog, the modifier At the age of eight "dangles", not attaching to the subject of the main clause (and possibly implying that the family was eight years old when it bought the dog, or even that the dog was eight when it was bought, rather than the intended meaning of giving the narrator's age at the time).