Grammar Weekly - Squinting Modifiers

It's time again for another segment of Grammar Weekly. Lead Character's friend, Punky, encouraged him to keep at it because of its importance. Hence this.

Our topic for today is all about modifiers, and how they sometimes squint in a sentence.

To refresh your memory, modifiers are what you add in your sentence to add details to an otherwise bland statement. It's the seasoning on your meat, they're the spices that make plain vinegar pinakurat, the wattle that completes your double chin. . .you get the drift, right? Simply put, they're the adjectives and adverbs in your sentences.

As an adjective: The man who can't be moved just waits in the corner.

As an adverb: He just stands there like he can't be moved.

Now, what happens when modifiers squint?

When a modifier squints, it would seem like it's modifying either the subject preceding or succeeding it, as is in the following example:

"Masturbating often causes clear skin."

Now, that sentence is clearly ambiguous (clearly ambiguous, ha! Could I be any more ironic?), and would confuse a lot of masturbators. Is it when they regularly masturbate that they get clear skin? Or does the act of masturbation itself cause clear skin most of the time? If your sentence offers the same ambiguity, you need to fix your modifier.

And that's it for now. Next week, if I see another post on Facebook about people having a "pictorial," I will discuss the difference between a pictorial and a photo shoot IN ALL FRICKIN' CAPS!!!

But for now, if you want to read up more about modifiers, and how they not only squint, but dangle and get misplaced sometimes, click here.