Humorous English: Misplaced Modifiers and How to Fix Them

A modifier's function is to affirm, compare, describe, emphasize, introduce, join, limit, or negate other words. The two types of modifiers are: adjectives that modify nouns (names of people, places, things, ideas, or qualities) and pronouns (substitutes for nouns) and adverbs that modify verbs (words that express action or a state of being). Modifiers may be single words, or they may be clauses or phrases. A modifier that is placed too far from the word the writer intended to link it with is a misplaced modifier. The ambiguity often results in a humorous sentence.

The following rules for correcting misplaced modifiers are used to revise incorrect sentences throughout this article:

1. Limiting modifiers (only, even, almost, nearly, just) should be placed in front of the words they modify.
2. Place modifying phrases and clauses so that readers can see at a glance what they modify.

. Legal Misplaced Modifiers

American law has a language of its own, consisting of a vocabulary with an unusually large number of foreign phrases, archaic words and expressions. It has a formal style and is analogous to English before 18th-century grammarians attempted to reduce its variability and make it logica. Modern legal writers try to balance the legal English by making it simple and easy to understand. Ambiguity in legal English occurs because of the style and the complexity of the terms. Therefore, evidence of misplaced modifiers is prevalent in legal English. The following examples of legal misplaced modifiers are from A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. The examples are followed by my corrected versions.
In this sentence, a passive verb phrase is inserted after an introductory participial phrase: "In applying the intermediate standard of review, the challenged statute must be analyzed/". The meaning is that "the court must analyze the challenged statute." The revised sentence is: "In applying the intermediate standard of review, the court must analyze the challenged statute."