[Grammar] Talking of xxx, China is a xxx--accepted dangling?

[LiuJing]

I do appreciate so many people have participated in the 'judging from' thread of mine and it seems people have reached a consensus that the dangling arising from there is acceptable.

My question here is: can 'talking of ' be regarded as an example of acceptable danglings as well?

________________

Talking of human rights, China is a big violator.----Is the dangling here acceptable? Thank you.

 

[Raymott]

I do appreciate so many people have participated in the 'judging from' thread of mine and it seems people have reached a consensus that the dangling arising from there is acceptable.

My question here is: can 'talking of ' be regarded as an example of acceptable danglings as well?

________________

Talking of human rights, China is a big violator.----Is the dangling here acceptable? Thank you.

I'd accept that in speech, not in academic writing.
In speech, you can't see the punctuation; in writing, you can think of a better way to express it.
You mean "[Since we're] talking of human rights, [I believe that] China is a big violator."

[I didn't read the previous thread.]

 

[TheParser]

I do appreciate so many people have participated in the 'judging from' thread of mine and it seems people have reached a consensus that the dangling arising from there is acceptable.

My question here is: can 'talking of ' be regarded as an example of acceptable danglings as well?

________________

Talking of human rights, China is a big violator.----Is the dangling here acceptable? Thank you.

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

Hello, LiuJing.

(1) Thanks again for your "judging from" thread. I learned SO much.

(2) This one is much easier (I think!!!).

(3) Professors Pence & Emery in their A Grammar of Present-Day English explain:

(a) Yes, your sentence is technically a dangling participle. And it's FINE!

(b) But it is so popular that many grammar books give it a fancier name:

absolute participles.

(a) "Absolute" sentences are considered "good" English. For example:


(i) THE TEACHER BEING ILL, we returned home.

(4) The good professors give this example:

Speaking of baseball, where is [I deleted the baseball player's name] now?

(5) They list SOME of the participles that are used absolutely:

allowing
concerning
owing
speaking
talking

(a) They also point out that in certain kinds of sentences, some of those participles are also considered prepositions:

He will say nothing CONCERNING HIS PART IN THE AFFAIR.

***** THANK YOU *****