Monday, October 6, 2014

Dangling Participles R Us







Shame, Lev Grossman and all your editors, shame shame! Your second book in the Magicians series, The Magician King, leads off with the following sentence:

"Quentin rode a gray horse with white socks named Dauntless."

SNERK!

I always name my socks too. Mine are called Clueless and Feckless.

I grant that it is a hard sentence to fix:  Quentin rode Dauntless, a gray horse with white socks? Dauntless Quentin wore white socks and rode a gray horse? Quentin rode a gray horse with white socks; the horse's name was Dauntless? Still and yet, even if it meant reshaping the entire paragraph, there must be some way around that misplaced modifier.

Enjoy the above grammarly griefs. Those who displayed them should have known better. Btw, the middle photo shows marshmallow-flavored jellybeans.

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