Modifiers misplaced

Eighteen years old and fresh out of school, the day I set foot in what was then known as Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) in Serdang, Selangor, was an eye-opening experience.

The above is a sentence taken from an article written by a columnist in a popular national English daily of December 11.

The sentence has the connotation that the day was eighteen years old and fresh out of school resulted from such modifiers having been misplaced; and a reconstruction is necessary : When I was eighteen years old and fresh out of school, the day I set foot in what was then known as Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) in Serdang, Selangor, was an eye-opening experience.

While sorting out a bundle of old documents recently, I have also chanced upon an older issue (June 30, 2008) of the same newspaper containing a news item bearing the following headline, "Groups stage protest against costly petrol in Ipoh", which is a complete sentence.

Owing to the modifier in the sentence having been misplaced, it has had the tendency to lead readers to understand that because of the costly petrol in Ipoh (which is in the state of Perak), groups stage protest (against such costly petrol).

In actual fact, costly petrol was then being sold not only in the state of Perak but also in all other states of the country; and the headline should have been "Groups stage protest in Ipoh against costly petrol" to reflect the correct situation.

About participial phrases

What are they
When you go to the online dictionary, www.dictionary.com and key in participial phrases, you will be led to quite a number of sites and if you choose to access this site http://department.monm.edu/english/kroberts/english201/project2002/
group10/participial.htm, you will see that participial phrases are present participles or past participles and any modifiers, objects or complements, and contain verbs which act as adjectives in a sentence.

Now, we know the definition of participial phrases. Does it mean that we know how to use them correctly? Oh, that is not the case.

In fact, participial phrases are often inappropriately used by writers who are not vigilant enough, and the relative sentences will then have different meanings. Dangling modifiers are the name given for such misuses and have been mentioned in quite a few articles in this column.

So, I shall just quote an example to show a dangling modifier in the next paragraph.

Dangling modifier
Ipoh has a new landmark in the form of a 23.5m-tall statue of Lord Buddha. Built against the backdrop of the Sleeping Buddha Mountain in Tambun, a ceremony will be held next week to consecrate the statue. The latter sentence begins with a participial phrase which appears to modify a ceremony and therefore needs to be rewritten as “Built against the backdrop of the Sleeping Buddha Mountain in Tambun, the statue will be consecrated in a ceremony to be held next week."

How to avoid
Just bring the participial phrases as near as possible to the nouns or pronouns they modify.

Not only 'dangling modifiers' will plague you
There is another aspect in the use of participial phrases where writers may go wrong - that is the use of a present participle instead of a past participle and vice versa.

Below are sentences taken from newspaper articles/reports written by experienced writers.

Original sentence - Worried over soaring divorce rate in the state, the state government is offering to foot the bill for couples in troubled marriages to go for a second honeymoon.
What about - Worrying over soaring divorce rate in the state, the state government is offering to foot the bill for couples in troubled marriages to go for a second honeymoon.

We may wonder whether the two mean the same thing and whether the newspaper is correct in using the past participle. It can be seen from http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ask_about_
english/pdfs/aae_08_s2_prog_6_worry_worried.pdf (which explains the difference between 'I worry about you' and 'I am worried about you' both being grammatically correct) that original sentence is referring to a specific situation while the amended one is a general statement. Hence, the newspaper is right.

Original sentence - Providing exposure to the most established and largest companies in China, the index tracks the performance of the top 50 Chinese A-shares based on market capitalisation.
What about - Provided exposure to the most established and largest companies in China, the index tracks the performance of the top 50 Chinese A-shares based on market capitalisation.

It should not pose any difficulty for us to realise that the original sentence is saying that since the index tracks the performance of the top 50 Chinese A-shares based on market capitalisation, the index is providing exposure to the most established and largest companies in China. Likewise, we should easily get the meaning of the amended one which says that because the index is provided exposure to the most established and largest companies in China, the index tracks the performance of the top 50 Chinese A-shares based on market capitalisation.

Lost? Don't be
Simply convert your intended participial phrase into a clause or a separate
sentence and see if you need a verb in the active voice (active verb) or one in the passive voice (passive verb) in such conversion. If it is the former, use the present participle in the participial phrase and if latter, use the past participle.

Invariably, we are advised that the use of participial phrases will spice up our writings, but we need to be careful to be able to steer clear of the above pitfalls to achieve the required effectiveness.

Kengt, Penang

The above was written by me on the invitation of a newspaper column promoting the use of correct English; but at the time of submission, I was surprised to learn that the co-ordinator/assistant editor in charge had no grammar ability to vet the article which was sent for vetting (with no response) by a regular contributor of the column.

Punctuation Error and Noun/Verb Disagreement

Generally, it is agreed that no one version is “correct”, however, there are certainly preferences in use.

Probably the major differences between British and American English lies in the choice of vocabulary. Some words mean different things in the two varieties.

Two days ago when I was reading a newspaper, my attention was caught by the above two sentences appearing in an article in its column promoting the correct use of English.

Looking at the first sentence with a comma (the one before "however") highlighted by me in bold, one will realize that according to the rules of punctuation, a semicolon is to be used in place of such comma.

There is a noun/verb disagreement (both the noun and verb therein being highlighted in bold) in the second sentence.

Isn't it ironic that sentences containing grammatical errors are allowed in a column promoting the correct use of English?

In the same column of the same newspaper of today, appears the sentence
(The association of death and disposal probably came from the tradition of disposing of rubbish and burials at sea in deep water some six fathoms deep) which is of doubtful grammatical standing as common usage requires the expression with ‘association’ to be either “the association between death and disposal” or “the association of death with disposal”.


Kengt, Penang, December 11, 2009

Use of Indirect Speech requiring any Pronoun of Nearness to be changed into One of Distance

She said yesterday that this was something the union had been seeking for the past few years as it was in line with its policy to provide quality education to Malay­sian children through highly qualified and dedicated teachers.

The above is a sentence appearing in a news item of a newspaper today. "This" used in the sentence is a pronoun of nearness referring to whatever that has been stated earlier.

The sentence is in indirect or reported speech. One of the rules for the use of indirect or reported speech is that any pronoun of nearness needs to be converted into a pronoun of distance.

"That" can have the same meaning of "this" explained above but "that" is a pronoun of distance. Hence, to be grammatically correct, the sentence in question should have been: She said yesterday that that was something the union had been seeking for the past few years as it was in line with its policy to provide quality education to Malay­sian children through highly qualified and dedicated teachers.

One will notice that there are two "that's" in the sentence with the first "that" functioning as a conjunction introducing the subordinate clause/s coming after it. Its use is, however, optional - that is, if it is omitted, the sentence is equally good as 'She said yesterday that was something the union had been seeking for the past few years as it was in line with its policy to provide quality education to Malay­sian children through highly qualified and dedicated teachers.'

Kengt, Penang, December 4, 2009.