Dangling Modifier -- Which one is correct?

[mfhaq77]

Hi Everyone,

Sometimes I get perplexed with what people call dangling modifier.

Here are two questions.

Please help to find out the correct answer.

Q.1.Which sentence is correct
a) Not looking where he was going, a car hit him.
b) Not looking where he was going, a car had hit him
c) Not looking where he was going, he was hitted by a car.
d) Not looking where he was going, he was hit by a car.

Q.2. Hanging on the wal, ______________.
a) was there a photograph of my mother.
b) was a photograph of my mother.
c) a photograph of my mother was
d) I saw a photograph of my mother.
e) a photograph of my mother I saw.

I think the answer of question 1 is d)
and answer of question 2 is also d)

What do you think?

 

[MikeNewYork]

1. D is correct.

2. B is correct. D there would mean that the writer/speaker was hanging on the wall.

 

[Tarheel]

What words are misspelled?

 

[Matthew Wai]

I doubt that the participle in #2 is a modifier. It looks like part of the finite verb 'was hanging'.

 

[mfhaq77]

1. D is correct.

2. B is correct. D there would mean that the writer/speaker was hanging on the wall.

What about option e) in question 2

 

[Matthew Wai]

I think 'a photograph of my mother was seen by me' is grammatical but might be unnatural.

 

[TheParser]

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


Hello, Mfhaq:

As Matthew Wai implied, there should be NO comma after the word "wall."

In regular order, the sentence would read: "A photograph of my mother was hanging on the wall."

Sometimes for variety, a writer might write "Hanging on the wall was a photograph of my mother."

 

[MikeNewYork]

What about option e) in question 2

That sentence is very unnatural.

 

[BobK]

Answer 2e is the sort of strained inversion that sometimes appears in dated poetry (and modern doggerel that assumes it can get away with it). Ogden Nash satirised this in a parody of Innisfree - which someone can probably find somewhere on the Net (but I have some culinary duties I must attend to).

b

 

[Matthew Wai]

I thought answer 2e was similar to Yoda-speak.