Ambiguity will emerge if any writer (experienced or not) is not careful

Most people would like to have the favour of reading messages written straight to the point.





An office worker, who declined to be named, said the staff claimed that someone had illegally entered the building to try and commit suicide after two glass panes on the ground floor were found shattered by a security guard.

The above is a paragraph taken from a news item in a popular national English daily.

It appears from the paragraph that two glass panes on the ground floor were found shattered by a security guard. Obviously, this is not the intended meaning.

The paragraph needs to be recast to do away with ambiguity to show the intended meaning as follows:-

An office worker, who declined to be named, said the staff claimed that someone had illegally entered the building to try and commit suicide after a security guard found two glass panes on the ground floor shattered.

Here is another example : Learn how you can use design to drive business at The Design School. It is an advertisement inserted by a college in a newspaper.

Such construction can give you the meaning : Learn how you can use design to drive business at The Design School. You know for sure that this is not the intended meaning of the advertiser who actually wants the message to be understood as : At The Design School, learn how you can use design to drive business.

Vigilance is, therefore, the key to proper writing.

Chance favors only the prepared mind.
-- Louis Pasteur