Clarity Over Hilarity: Eliminating Misplaced Modifiers from Your Writing

Intentionally humorous writing is hard. Unfortunately, unintentionally funny business writing is a lot easier.

Nobody wants to be the office punch line when it comes to grammar, though – especially considering the not-so-hidden costs of bad writing.

Poor grammar in workplace communications carries the risks of reputational damage, strained relationships, and wasted time and money due to lack of clarity. Put simply, the way you write goes a long way toward determining your professional trajectory.

While proper workplace grammar depends heavily on the words you use, it’s also vital to arrange those words in a way that makes sense. Knowing whether “your” or “you’re” is appropriate won’t matter if you’re not keeping your grammatical house in order.

Modifier mistakes are common. For every sentence you write, make sure that the subject is clear, and always place your modifiers next to the things they modify.

Take a look at the following sentences and take note of your initial reactions. (Just a hint, though: If you don’t see anything wrong with either of them, you really can’t afford to stop reading.)

1. “Our vendors will be by next week to pick up the snack machines, who are retiring without having found a successor.”
2. “Driving around the parking lot, the geese have been making a huge mess.”

Thanks – or no thanks, more likely – to poorly organized wording, what should be routine communications are now inadvertent comedy routines.

The first sentence contains a misplaced modifier. Instead of the vendors retiring without having found a successor, your bemused and amused readers are left to wonder what sort of retirement ceremony you might hold for vending machines. Do they get cake and a gold watch?

To convey the actual meaning, the sentence should read:

“Our vendors, who are retiring without having found a successor, will be by next week to pick up the snack machines.”

The second sentence contains the misplaced modifier’s close relative, a dangling modifier. In this situation, the real subject of the sentence doesn’t even appear in the sentence. Neither does the verb showing the action of the subject of the sentence.

Like its cousin, the dangling modifier creates confusion as to who is doing what – and now your readers are left with the image of deranged waterfowl joyriding around the property (How do they even steer?) and trashing the place.

What the sentence really means (probably as a setup for a request to stop feeding the geese so they’ll go away) is this:

“While driving around the parking lot, I noticed that the geese have been making a huge mess.”

This restores subject (“I”), verb (“noticed”) – and clarity.

Both of these instances are pretty harmless. But that’s not always the case with misplaced and dangling modifiers.
 

Non-Funny Business: When Out-of-place Modifiers Cause Problems off the Page

Unlike the first pair of sentences, the next two aren’t all that funny. Once again, let’s start with the wrongly worded versions.

1. “Any other suspicious communications must be reported to the IT team, whether by text or telephone.”
2. “Walking through the parking lot, the trash needs to be picked up.”

Confusing, right? And here, the mixed-up communication has the potential to waste people’s time and energy – in turn, costing your company money.

Let’s take these one at a time.

In the first case, your readers might think they need to text or telephone the IT team to report suspicious messages. Your IT team is not going to thank you, because these forms of communication are more likely to cause disruption to their own work.

Also, what if your readers don’t have the IT team’s phone numbers? That just means time wasted looking them up, when what you really meant to say was:

“Any other suspicious communications, whether by text or telephone, must be reported to the IT team.”

In other words, just email them like you always do.

The second instance will make your readers wonder how trash manages to walk around the parking lot. But it also could make them think they need to step away from their desks – if they’re in the office – and do a walkaround in the parking lot to pick up trash.

But what is it that you really want them to do? You should probably start by getting rid of the dangling modifier and putting in the real subject of the sentence, like so:

“Walking through the parking lot, I saw that the trash needs to be picked up.”

Now you can follow with the plan for doing that, saving everyone from confusion and wasted time.
 

Looking to boost your grammar skills? Check out Business Writing and Grammar Skills Made Easy and Fun!

Avoiding these modifier mistakes isn’t difficult.

If a sentence looks funny – and it’s not meant to – fix it.
 

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