Did You Say What You Think You Said? Misplaced Participles

Recently, in part one of our series on misplaced modifiers, we explored how word order can affect the clarity of a sentence. That post looked at familiar one-word modifiers such as only and almost, and it also examined squinting modifiers. This time we turn our attention to participles—both the single-word variety and participial phrases.

Repeat Offenders: Misplaced Participles and Participial Phrases

You’ve probably heard of “dangling participles” and were warned to avoid them at all costs. Fear not: we will address these grammatical errors later. But a participle doesn’t have to be dangling to cause trouble, and today’s post will explain why.

For those who were daydreaming in grammar school, we’ll first define a participle. Simply skip this section if you are already conversant with the concept.

What Is a Participle?

A participle is the –ing or –ed form of a regular verb that we use with a helping (also referred to as an auxiliary) verb to represent certain verb tenses.

Here is the regular verb to walk used with helping verbs to create different tenses:

• Today I am walking four miles.
• Yesterday I was walking when I saw a squirrel.
• Occasionally I have walked more than six miles in one day.

The complete verb in each of these cases is the helping verb plus the participle.

(Irregular verbs have . . .  well . . . irregular participles; the past participle of the verb to be, for example, is been, not beed.)

Participles Can Function as Modifiers (Usually Adjectives)

Here are two sentences in which walking is functioning as a modifier (in these cases adjectives) and not part of the verb in the main clause:

• Sam put on his walking shoes.  [What kind of shoes or which shoes? Walking shoes.]
• After a night out, he looked like the walking dead. [What kind of dead? The walking dead.]

Participles often launch what we call participial phrases, words or phrases that flesh out the idea expressed by the participle. In the next sentence, the participial phrase walking the dog starts with the participle walking and is followed by the object of that participle—the dog. Taken as a whole, the participial phrase modifies (i.e., describes) the noun woman:

• I spoke to the woman walking the dog.

 “Walking the dog” answers the question “which woman?” Walking is not a verb at all in this context but a modifier—in this case, an adjective describing the noun woman.

Participial phrases can begin with either the –ing or –ed form of the verb:

• The car blocking the driveway is mine.
• The fire alarm was triggered by the biscuits burning in the oven.
• Elections are often won by candidates backed by the most money.
• Tomorrow we will begin planting in the fields plowed last week.

In these sentences, the verbs are is, was triggered, are won, and will begin—whereas blocking, burning, backed, and plowed are adjectives answering the questions which car? which biscuits? what kind of candidates? which fields?

We know that blocking, burning, backed, and plowed are participles because we recognize that in different sentences, each of those modifiers could serve as verbs or parts of verb phrases.

Momentary deeper dive: Modifying participles, as we have seen, are adjectives derived from verbs. They are, in fact, one of three kinds of verbals—participles, gerunds, and infinitives (topics for another day). While verbals don’t function as verbs in a clause, they nonetheless retain all the properties of verbs; thus, as we saw above in the sentence about the woman walking the dog, a participle can have an object.

When Are Modifying Participles Problematic?

As is true for other modifiers, modifying participles cause problems when they are misplaced. Here is an example using the participial phrase “presented clearly and logically”:

• Unclear: Presented clearly and logically, the judge was convinced by the arguments.
• Clear: Presented clearly and logically, the arguments were convincing to the judge.

The first sentence is unclear because it suggests that the judge was presented clearly and logically rather than the arguments.

Here is another sentence containing the participial phrase “pacing back and forth in front of the jury.” To test the placement of the participial phrase, we ask ourselves, “Who was ‘pacing back and forth in front of the jury?’”

• Unclear: Pacing back and forth in front of the jury, the case was made with great conviction by the attorney. [This sentence illogically says that the case was “pacing back and forth in front of the jury.”]
• Clear: Pacing back and forth in front of the jury, the attorney made her case with great conviction. [This sentence clearly says that the attorney, not the case, was “pacing back and forth in front of the jury.”]

Sometimes we can correct an illogical sentence simply by moving the participial phrase so that it clearly modifies the appropriate noun. In doing so, however, we must be careful not to create a new problem:

• Unclear: Wanted for attempted murder in three states, the judge refused to let the defendant’s family post bail for his release. [The judge is not, as this sentence says, “wanted for attempted murder in three states.”]
• Clear but uses the passive voice: Wanted for attempted murder in three states, the defendant was denied bail by the judge. [This sentence says clearly that the defendant is the one “wanted for attempted murder in three states,” but now the sentence is written in the passive voice.]

Perhaps the best solution in this case is to convert the participial phrase into a dependent clause, a group of words that has a subject and a verb but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. The dependent clause is in square brackets, with its subject in bold and its verb in italics:

• Clear and uses the active voice: [Because the defendant was wanted for attempted murder in three states], the judge denied him bail.

Note: This clause happens to be functioning as an adverb because it’s modifying the verb denied in the main clause.

Here is an unclear sentence that can be made clear either by revising the main clause or by changing the participial phrase, which is in bold, to a dependent clause:

• Unclear: Dismissing the case and sending it back to a lower court, the public outcry was substantial and largely opposed to the Supreme Court’s decision. [This sentence illogically says that “the public outcry” was “dismissing the case and sending it back to a lower court.”]
• Clear: Dismissing the case and sending it back to a lower court, the Supreme Court faced substantial public outcry. [Here we kept the participial phrase but made sure it logically modifies “the Supreme Court” and not “the public outcry.”]
• Clear: [After the Supreme Court dismissed the case and sent it back to a lower court], the public outcry was substantial and largely opposed to the decision. [This time we kept the main clause as it was in the original sentence but converted the participial phrase into a clause (in brackets).]

 Writers intent on being clear and logical in their communication must be adept at recognizing and correcting misplaced participles and participial phrases—because they will encounter an awful lot of them!

If you haven’t already read our post on one-word misplaced modifiers, check it out now. Forthcoming posts will address other misplaced elements as well as the dreaded dangling participle.

Test Yourself

Identify the misplaced participles and participial phrases in the following sentences and replace them with clear and logical revisions:

1. Frolicking through our front yard and eating all our potted plants, our neighbors saw a family of deer.
2. Carefully designed by a committee of judicial educators, the seminar participants will find that the agenda addresses their training needs.
3. After searching the backyard for hours, the little boy’s mother found his blanket walking back toward the house.
4. Writing four papers and taking three exams, the last semester of law school challenged Emily.
5. We stared for hours every day at the television watching the March Madness games.

Answers

1. Our neighbors saw a family of deer frolicking through our front yard and eating all our potted plants. [In the original sentence, the neighbors were “frolicking” and “eating all our potted plants.”]
2. The seminar participants will find that the agenda, carefully designed by a committee of judicial educators, addresses their training needs. [In the original sentence, the participants were “carefully designed” by the committee.]
3. Walking back toward the house, the little boy’s mother found his blanket after searching the backyard for hours. [The original sentence suggests that the blanket was walking back toward the house. It is, of course, possible that the writer intended to say that the blanket was in the arms of the child, who was walking back toward the house, but the syntax of this sentence leaves room for misinterpretation either way.]
4. Writing four papers and taking three exams, Emily found the last semester of law school challenging. [The original sentence suggests that the semester wrote papers and took exams.]
5. We stared for hours every day at the television as we watched the March Madness games. [The original sentence suggests that the television was watching the games. Here we converted the participial phrase to a dependent clause. Another option is to move the participial phrase to the beginning of the sentence, that construction reverses the order of actions: Watching the March Madness games, we stared at the television for hours.]