Ugh. Today, on Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day, there was a misplaced modifier in one of the example sentences. Considering MW is supposed to be one of the authorities on grammatical correctness, I was quite disappointed. Here’s the sentence, with the word of the day being vitrine<\/i>:<\/p>\n
“A weathered wooden child’s chair is stacked atop its twin, with two bright pink plastic bowls stacked on the top seat. In an adjacent vitrine sits a miniature version of this assemblage, the tiny pieces placed in the center of a bright orange square of velvet.”
\n— From an art exhibit review by Jessica Baran in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis, MO), 24 February 2011<\/i><\/p>\n
In this sentence, “weathered” and “wooden” seem to be modifying “child” instead of the “chair,” but that meaning is clearly not the intent. I don’t think that the child is made of wood or that (s)he is weathered. Instead, the sentence should read something like “A child’s weathered wooden chair…” but I digress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ugh. Today, on Merriam Webster’s Word of the Day, there was a misplaced modifier in one of the example sentences. Considering MW is supposed to be one of the authorities on grammatical correctness, I was quite disappointed. Here’s the sentence, with the word of the day being vitrine: “A weathered wooden child’s chair is stacked … <\/p>\n