The term 'misplaced modifiers' brings back unhappy memories of grammar lessons in which the emphasis was more on learning the names of the things that go wrong than on how to get them right. I did learn to spot misplaced modifiers, though.
Here's one from The Book People:
"Highly regarded and much missed, any crime fiction fan will love to discover Margaret Yorke's tense and chilling thrillers."
Presumably The Book People meant that Margaret Yorke is highly regarded and much missed, not the crime fiction fan. Even if we removed the fan it would sound like it's the thrillers that are highly regarded and much missed, which presumably isn't intended, either, unless they've been out of print for a long time.
I think The Book People meant, "Any crime fiction fan will love discovering the tense and thrilling chillers of the highly regarded and much missed Margaret Yorke."
One could make a case for using hyphens with highly-regarded and much-missed, but let's not get into that. We're having enough trouble getting people not write things like "sneak peak" or "very unique."
Just to head off a likely comment, putting the period inside speech marks at the end of a sentence (as in ...or "very unique.") is the how it's done in the US, putting it outside (as in ...or "very unique".) is how it's done in the UK. I solve the problem by being inconsistent.
Here, from the Huffington Post, is another example of a misplaced modifier:
"[he] played a doctor in Parkland, a drama that retells the day John F. Kennedy was shot from multiple perspectives."
There are conspiracy buffs who believe Kennedy was shot from multiple perspectives but that's not what the Huffington Post had in mind. Presumably they meant, "[he] played a doctor in Parkland, a drama that retells from multiple perspectives the day John F. Kennedy was shot."
When it's not about something so tragic, a sentence with a misplaced modifier can be quite amusing. The University of Wisconsin Writing Center shared some examples from essay and short stories:
Oozing slowly across the floor, Marvin watched the salad dressing.
- Waiting for the Moonpie, the candy machine began to hum loudly.
- Coming out of the market, the bananas fell on the pavement.
- She handed out brownies to the children stored in tupperware.
- I smelled the oysters coming down the stairs for dinner.
- I brushed my teeth after eating with Crest Toothpaste.
- Grocery shopping at Big Star, the lettuce was fresh.
- Driving like a maniac, the deer was hit and killed.
- With his tail held high, my father led his prize poodle around the arena.
- I saw the dead dog driving down the interstate.
In general, the way to avoid problems is to make sure the modifier is closest to the thing you're describing or that's doing the action. For instance, putting "driving down the interstate" closest to "I" makes it, "Driving down the interstate, I saw the dead dog."
Sometimes commas are the solution: "My father led his prize poodle, with his tail held high, around the arena." Even though I think that's technically correct it still may create a vision of Dad with his tail held high, so even better would be to refer to "its" tail instead of "his" tail.
