i have cleverly (or accidentally) created my own word today: danglish. really, it started as a typographical error. sometimes when i type, i merge words, leaving out the end of one word and the beginning of the following word. thus, danglish. in my mind, the title was supposed to read "dangling english". i liked the accidental effect much, much better.
so, since i have not been actually studying the english language on a regular basis since about my 19th year of life, i have decided that i am getting a little bit dumber and now i am going to use this blog as an opportunity to re-educate myself. i know, it seems preposterous - "adriane, not knowing something about the english language when she claims to know everything!?" but it's true. and i'll be the first one to admit it. i cannot remember what a dangling participle is. and who reminded me that i don't know? house. yes, that ornery, negative, genius of a fake doctor, gregory house. i was watching the season finale and he said "dangling participle" while criticizing a cuban on his poor english. so i looked it up.
Dangling Participle
A present participle is a verb ending in -ing, and is called dangling when the subject of the -ing verb and the subject of the sentence do not agree. An example is "Rushing to finish the paper, Bob's printer broke." Here the subject is Bob's printer, but the printer isn't doing the rushing. Better would be "While Bob was rushing to finish the paper, his printer broke." (Pay close attention to sentences beginning with When ——ing.)
One way to tell whether the participle is dangling is to put the phrase with the participle right after the subject of the sentence: "Bob's printer, rushing to finish the paper, broke" doesn't sound right.
Not all words ending in -ing are participles: in the sentence "Answering the questions in chapter four is your next assignment," the word answering functions as a noun, not a verb. (These nouns in -ing are called gerunds.) [Revised 3 August 2001.]
so there's your english lesson for today. don't dangle your participles or an arrogant doctor type may harshly criticise you. and now i can, too.
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5 comments:
i'm still confused.
and now i'm scared that you are going to make fun of me.
hahahaha.
you just have to make sure your verbs and subjects agree. got it? :)
and i won't make fun of you...to your face. hahahaha. okay. really, i won't at all.
i can make them agree.
i'm pretty sure i have never left a participle dangling, but you never know--i may have.
and i know you won't make fun of me to my face.
i'm okay if you do it behind my back. cause i'm sure you'll tell me about it, so it's not really behind my back.
hahaha.
Extremely infomative, I thank you for the brush up lesson on dangling participles. I'm sure it would make your high school English teacher proud. However, I would like to point out that you spelled "criticize" incorrectly, I'm sure that would not make your high school english teacher proud. ; )
haha...funny how i spelled "criticize" two different ways in one blog. but i do have to point out that technically, "criticise" is okay. it's just the british version of "criticize".
i do realize none of us are brits, but we sure are fans of charlie and lola. i must have been suffering from a post charlie and lola mental blockage.
love ya, laur!
and yes, my high school english teachers would be VERY proud of me. maybe not my a.p. teacher, though. i didn't pass my test, ya know.
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