Dangling participles wreck your writing with unintended humour. Here’s how to avoid them.
After staring at the ocean for half an hour, my salad finally arrived.
Remember:
Who’s rowing and are they showing?
Who gets your sentence started and have you mentioned them? Have you? Are you sure? Our seaside diner got into the story first, not the salad. But if you don’t say so, the salad takes over the action, behaving hilariously. (Do salads stare?)
The fix:
After I stared at the ocean for half an hour, my salad finally arrived.
The secret:
If you start a sentence with a verb ending in “ing,” be alert to the danger. And laughter directed at you!
