[Grammar] Dangling Sentence Structure?

[CaseyA]

Seven ways Rick Perry wants to change the Constitution | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments, the Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers.

Does anyone think that "From...To..." is dangling, since it seems to refer to "a major haul" but "Constitution" is right between them?

 

[TheParser]

Seven ways Rick Perry wants to change the Constitution | The Ticket - Yahoo! News


Does anyone think that "From...To..." is dangling, since it seems to refer to "a major haul" but "Constitution" is right between them?

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) Like you, I am also waiting for a teacher's answer to your intriguing question.

(2) I should only like to respectfully suggest that a reordering of the sentence

might help us to better analyze your sentence.

(3) In other words, we could have:


(a) The Constitution from ending lifetime tenure to scrapping two

amendments would see a major overhaul.

(b) The Constitution would see a major overhaul from ending lifetime tenure

to scrapping two amendments.

(4) Does the prepositional phrase modify "The Constitution" or "overhaul"?

That is the question.

(a) I do not have the confidence to answer the question.

(5) Is there any chance that the prepositional phrase is actually parenthetical?

That is, it does not belong to any noun. That it actually refers to the whole

statement. See what two commas do:

The Constitution, from ending lifetime tenure to scrapping two amendments,

would see a major overhaul.

Now let's put a comma in the other sentence:

The Constitution would see a major overhaul, from ending lifetime tenure to

scrapping two amendments.

(a) I most humbly suggest that in reading both sentences aloud, one would

"naturally" pause after the comma(s). Does that "prove" that the p.p. is, in fact,

parenthetical? IF it does, then the sentence as written is felicitous:

From ending lifetime tenure to scrapping two amendments, the Constitution

would see a major overhaul if ....

 

[CaseyA]

So, it is ungrammatical and poorly written?

 

[TheParser]

So, it is ungrammatical and poorly written?

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) I am certainly not qualified to call anything "ungrammatical."

(2) Like you, I am waiting for a teacher to give us an informed answer to

your great question. (I really like analyzing sentences. You are 100% correct:

sentences should be accurately written so that the reader knows exactly what

modifies what.)

(3) I will say, however, that most native speakers would get the idea of the sentence

without any problems. They would probably not give any thought to what modifies

what. And, of course, most native speakers don't even know what a hanging or

dangling participle is. Grammar is not a popular hobby!

 

[Tdol]

It might benefit from a bit of editing, but as a BrE speaker, I don't worry much about dangling structures- we seem to take a more lenient view than American speakers. The problem is not so much one of grammar as one of meaning to me.

 

[CaseyA]

Dangling sentence structures is okay, and the following is also okay?

Driving to London that night, a sudden thought struck me.

My understanding is "driving to London that night" modifies "me", but there is "a sudden thought" between them. Maybe this is some kind of evolution of the English language that I have missed out on?

 

[emsr2d2]

Dangling sentence structures is okay, and the following is also okay?

My understanding is "driving to London that night" modifies "me", but there is "a sudden thought" between them. Maybe this is some kind of evolution of the English language that I have missed out on?

This falls into the same area as was discussed on another thread a few days ago (sorry, I can't remember which one) - we make sense of a sentence as we read it or after reading it, not one word at a time. We know it wouldn't make sense that the "sudden thought" was the thing that was "driving through the night" so no matter what order the words are in, or how they're structured, we know it's "me" who was "driving through the night" and also "me" that the "sudden thought struck".

 

[TheParser]

Dangling sentence structures is okay, and the following is also okay?

My understanding is "driving to London that night" modifies "me", but there is "a sudden thought" between them. Maybe this is some kind of evolution of the English language that I have missed out on?

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


(1) I agree with you that the sentence is not very elegant.

(2) The sentence seems to say that a thought was driving to London and struck me.

(3) Of course, as the Editor of usingenglish just told us, dangling participles do not

confuse native speakers. We all "know" what the meaning of the sentence is.

(4) Of course, learners should try to avoid them. So I would suggest:

(While) driving to London one night, I suddenly had a thought.

(5) I found this example in The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar:

"Sleeping in mine orchard, a serpent stung me."

Who wrote that? Answer: Shakespeare!

 

[Tdol]

Dangling sentence structures is okay, and the following is also okay?

My understanding is "driving to London that night" modifies "me", but there is "a sudden thought" between them. Maybe this is some kind of evolution of the English language that I have missed out on?

I said that the original sentence might benefit from some editing, as would this one. However, I don't think it's a particularly serious issue. Please read what people say- I talked of editing and did say there was a problem, though small. I also pointed out that there are some differences in degree between the variants- dangling participles and comma splices seem to be given more leeway in BrE than in AmE. Please don't twist words and put words into people's mouths. And who would seriously believe that a sudden thought was driving to London?

 

[White Hat]

"From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments, the Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers."

Does anyone think that "From...To..." is dangling, since it seems to refer to "a major haul" but "Constitution" is right between them?

The sentence in question is OK. There is hardly anything dangling about it. The comma does it. Your second example ("Driving to London that night, a sudden thought struck me.") does have a dangling structure, for we don't see the word "I" in the 2nd part. It does sound awkward.

 

[TheParser]

"From ending lifetime tenure for federal judges to completely scrapping two whole amendments, the Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers."



The sentence in question is OK. There is hardly anything dangling about it. The comma does it. Your second example ("Driving to London that night, a sudden thought struck me.") does have a dangling structure, for we don't see the word "I" in the 2nd part. It does sound awkward.

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Dear Teacher Bennevis:


Would you please tell us what "From ending tenure to scrapping two amendments"

modifies? Does it modify "Constitution" or "overhaul" or "the Constitution would see a

major overhaul"?

Thank you

 

[5jj]

It is perhaps worth repeating what I said in another thread quite recently:

"Casey, I have no desire at all to put a damper on your interest in accuracy in English, but some of your questions are about things that would not worry the average native speaker. [...]

At one end of the scale of 'correct English' we have "his ball is throwed in a speed of 80 miles per hour." Here we have two clear breaches of the 'rules' of standard English:
1. 'throwed' is an incorrect formation of the past participle. Such mistakes are often made by native speakers who have not yet learnt, or are not bothered about, such slips; they may even be common in some dialects.
2. 'in' is not the appropriate preposition with '... a speed of...'. This mistake is normally made only by non-native speakers.

At the other end of the scale, we have things which concern style as much as grammar, and there are sometimes heated arguments about what is 'good' English. Here we are into the area of such things as the acceptablity of 'under the circumstances' - there are those who claim that, because of the etymology, we must use 'in'. There are those who argue that 'miles per hour' is wrong, because we should not mix Latin and English; we should say 'miles an hour'. [...] "

Dangling perticles are in this area, in my opinion. Most native speakers do not worry about such things, and continue using forms that are completely acceptable to all but a few style gurus.

 

[White Hat]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Dear Teacher Bennevis:


Would you please tell us what "From ending tenure to scrapping two amendments"

modifies? Does it modify "Constitution" or "overhaul" or "the Constitution would see a

major overhaul"?

Thank you

TheParser,

it certainly doesn't modify "Constitution". To be honest, the way it is, I don't see anything wrong with the sentence. I've studied English for about 30 years of my life (I'm 37), and here I just don't feel there is anything wrong with it.