Dan's Dangling Diction

“Sophie gave the misplaced intercom an odd look.” Well, if the intercom at the entrance of a gated estate is placed on the right-hand side, it’s worth an odd look. Robert Langdon, however, is not surprised at all. He “had already been through that with Teabing [who] prefers things the way they are at home” (Da Vinci Code 220). Dan Brown also prefers things a certain way although it’s not always the right way.
Having passed the ominous gate, Sophie muses that “It was a relief to be off the road, and she could think of few safer places to get their feet under them than this private, gated estate”¹(223). Never mind that Sophie and Langdon are NOT in search of their final resting place.
Already their drive to this presumably safe haven had been a remarkable one. “Even at a modest sixty kilometers an hour, the dangling front bumper of the armored truck grated against the deserted suburban road”²(213). Well the bumper may dangle as much as it likes, but it is not driving at sixty kilometers an hour. It is Langdon who cruises along at such a moderate pace but has suddenly second thoughts about this venture. “Accompanying the gravity of being a hunted man, Langdon was starting to feel the ponderous weight of responsibility”³(214). Notwithstanding his geniality, it is hard to imagine Langdon accompanying the gravity of being a hunted man. Even so, we should not forget that Langdon is driven by intuition rather than rationality, and “Considering the information potentially enclosed, the instinct was probably a good one”⁴(214). His instinct considering information is quite some double-think - or no-think, for that matter.
Meanwhile, Langdon’s archenemy, Bishop Aringarosa, is thinking, too. Or is he? “Now, seated in the Fiat, [he] realized his fists were clenched just thinking about that first meeting”⁵(151). A man of God may have divine powers, but that his fists are able you think about a meeting is rather astonishing. Yet, his accomplice Silas seems rather other-worldly as well when “He lunged, lashing out with the candle stand like a club”⁶(136).
A few chapters earlier, Sophie, Langdon’s sparring partner, visited her grandfather’s apparently deserted house. “Turning now and scanning the living room, Sophie’s eyes fell on the only object in the entire house that seemed out of place – her grandfather’s favorite antique, a sprawling Aubusson tapestry”⁷(142). Sophie’s eyes indeed may be scanning the room, but how can they be turning? Qual'occhio al mondo può star di paro all'occhio tuo?
As it behooves a thriller, all our musings are interrupted by a gunshot. “At the bottom of the driveway, Collet heard the gunshot”⁸(277). Whether Collet heard the shot while standing at the bottom of the driveway or the gunshot was fired at the bottom of the driveway remains a riddle to be solved by the reader.
But no fear; nothing can kill Langdon. Not even a Louvre guard had dared to kill him because “killing Langdon would be a generous fate compared to the misery about to be communicated by Bezu Fache and the French prison system”⁹(130). Killing him early on, the guard, however, would indeed have performed a generous deed and saved the author some embarrassment. But why should Dan Brown care that despite his unquestionable success his writing style has become the object of ridicule? After all, “Only those with a keen eye would notice [Aringarosa’s] 14-karat gold bishop's ring with purple amethyst, large diamonds, and hand-tooled mitre-crozier appliqué” (28). One, however, does not need a keen eye to detect that Brown’s syntax is precariously fuzzy.


A modifier dangles when it does not clearly connect to the subject of the following clause, the "modifiee." For example, a participle phrase (Dropped in the bushes,...) at the beginning of a sentence must provide information about the subject of the following clause (...the child found the missing keys), otherwise it is dangling. Since the subject in the example sentence is "the child," the participle phrase beginning the sentence would suggest the child's tragic downfall while in fact the sentence tries to say that the child found the missing keys in the bushes.
Modifiers such as adverbs and adjectives need to be placed as close as possible to the modified word or phrase. That "he likes extremely spicy curries" leaves us in the dark. Does he like them extremely, or does he like them extremely spicy? More here .

1) It was a relief to be off the road, and she could think of few safer places to get their feet under them than this private, gated estate = misplaced modifier: few safer places to get under their feet than this private, gated estate
2) Even at a modest sixty kilometers an hour, the dangling front bumper of the armored truck grated against the deserted suburban road = dangling modifier: The dangling front bumper, even though the armored truck made only a modest sixty kilometers an hour, grated against the deserted suburban road.
3) Accompanying the gravity of being a hunted man, Langdon was starting to feel the ponderous weight of responsibility = dangling modifier: Langdon, already feeling the gravity of being a hunted man, was starting to sense the ponderous weight of responsibility.
4) Considering the information potentially enclosed, the instinct was probably a good one = dangling modifier: Considering the information potentially enclosed, he realized that his instinct was probably a good one.
5) [Aringarosa,] now seated in the Fiat, realized his fists were clenched just thinking about that first meeting = dangling modifier: Aringarosa, now seated in the Fiat and thinking about that first meeting, realized his fists were clenched.
6) He lunged, lashing out with the candle stand like a club = faulty comparison: He lunged, thrashing the candle stand like a club.
7) Turning now and scanning the living room, Sophie’s eyes fell on the only object in the entire house that seemed out of place – her grandfather’s favorite antique, a sprawling Aubusson tapestry = dangling modifier: Turning now and scanning the living room, Sophie noticed the only object in the entire house that seemed out of place – her grandfather’s favorite antique, a sprawling Aubusson tapestry.
8) At the bottom of the driveway, Collet heard the gunshot = tangled syntax: Standing at the bottom of the driveway, Collet heard the gunshot.
9) Killing Langdon would be a generous fate compared to the misery about to be communicated by Bezu Fache and the French prison system = dangling modifier: Being killed would be too generous a fate for Langdon compared to the misery awaiting him in a French prison.

Don't be so positively negative!

Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style recommends to “put statements in positive form” because negative statements cause the reader to be “dissatisfied with being told only what is not; the reader wishes to be told what is” (20).
The authors exemplify their thesis with the words dishonest (positive form=not using the negating not) versus not honest (negative form). Dishonest is indeed much stronger, but is it necessarily the same as not honest? According to The American Heritage Dictionary, to be dishonest means to be “disposed to lie, cheat, defraud, or deceive,” thus indicating a particular characteristic. “She is dishonest” is, therefore, a strongly disapproving statement about a person’s character while “She is not honest” sounds less definite and leaves room for the possibility of her having an honest moment once in a while. Sometimes a negating not in front of an adjective may be the kinder choice.
Some opinion makers are well aware of this and favor telling us what is not. They rather talk about "the currently not employed" than about "the unemployed," maybe because the reader or listener notices the positive word employed but lets pass the tiny preceding not. Since, according to Strunk/White, "as a rule, it is better to express even a negative in positive form," they may even opt for talking about "the potentially employable Americans,” or "the fully hirable.” Now that sounds positive, doesn’t it? So, how about simply being a little bit more positive as a rule?

WASHINGTON—In what is being touted by the Labor Department as extremely positive news, the nation's available labor rate has reached double digits for the first time in 26 years, bringing the total number of potentially employable Americans to an impressive 15.7 million.
"This is such an exciting time to be an employer in America," said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, adding that every single day 6,500 more citizens join America's growing possible workforce. "There's such a massive and diverse pool of job-ready Americans to choose from. And each month the number only gets higher."
"While our current available labor rate of 10.2 percent isn't quite as robust as it was in 1982 or 1933, we're happy to say that reaching that benchmark is no longer out of the realm of possibility," Solis continued.
According to the Department of Labor's report, nearly 200,000 more Americans suddenly became fully hirable in October alone. And November saw unprecedented gains in the number of high-quality auto workers, teachers, lawyers, part-time retailers, and even doctors who could be employed.
The report also explained that, because of the booming would-be-employee market, college graduates are having an easier time than ever joining the ranks of those ready and able to receive monetary compensation for work performed at some point...

The entire Onion article is a blast and well worth reading, and so is Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, one of the best writing manuals out there - and it is cheap!

W_ING

Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.


Studies found that walkers are less likely to contract cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other killer diseases. They live longer, and their mental and spiritual health benefits from regular walking.
About two hundred years ago, the British Romantic poet William Wordsworth - although neither a medic nor a scientist - basically said already the same when he described nature as his nurse and the guardian of his heart and soul. Wordsworth was a passionate walker despite having legs that were "condemned by all the female connoisseurs." Thomas De Quincey then, however, admits that these very legs served Wordsworth well since he "must have traversed a distance of 175 to 180,000 English miles" with them and "has been indebted [to them] for a life of unclouded happiness".

Wordsworth's stimulus, walking, is in grammatical terms a gerund, the present participle of a verb that functions as a noun, as for example in "Quitting is foolish." Gerunds usually name activities, such as quitting or walking, rather than people or objects and can always be replaced with a proper noun: "His notice to quit is foolish."
The –ing form of a verb, its present participle, can, of course, also function as part of the verb or as an adjective.

An excerpt from "The legs of William Wordsworth" goes a long way to show the range of usage of the -ing form:

While many other Romantic poets went on walking tours, the center of Wordsworth’s life was walking.
To understand his walking, it is important to break away from the idea of ‘the walk,’ meaning a brief stroll about a pleasant place, and from that other definition of the recent writers on Romantic walking, of walking as long-distance travel. For Wordsworth, walking was a mode not of traveling but of being. At twenty-one, he set off on a two-thousand mile journey on foot, but during the last fifty years of his life, he paced back and forth on a small garden terrace to compose his poetry, and both kinds of walking were important to him, as was cruising about the streets of Paris and of London, climbing mountains, and walking with sister and friends, whose coming along he utterly enjoyed. All this walking found a way into his poetry. I could have written about his walking earlier, with the philosophical writers who made walking part of their thinking process, or later, when I turn to the histories of walking in the city. But he himself linked walking with nature, poetry, poverty, and vagrancy in a wholly new and compelling way.
In his early twenties, he seems to have set about to systematically fail at every alternative to being a poet and chosen wandering and musing as the preliminaries for realizing his vocation. The turning point in both his life and The Prelude is his amazing 1790 walk with his fellow student Robert Jones across France into the Alps, when they should have been studying for their Cambridge University exams.
Travel has its rogue and rebel aspects - straying, going out of bounds, escaping - but this journey was as much a quest for an alternative identity as an escape. The Grand Tour had been a standard feature of English gentlemen’s education, usually going by coach to meet people of their own class and see the artworks and monuments of France and Italy. To go on foot and make Switzerland, rather than Italy, the destination of the trip expressed a radical shift in priorities, away from art and aristocracy toward nature and democracy. The Alps themselves, already central objects in the cult of the landscape sublime, were part of the attraction, but so was Switzerland’s republican government and its association with Rousseau. (Rebecca Solnit,
wanderlust)

The gerund as the subject of a sentence:
Playing the violine requires a lot of practice.

The gerund as a subject complement:
The center of her life was playing the violine. Even though "was playing" looks like a verb, it isn't since the center of her life was not playing any instrument.

The gerund as an appositive:
Her biggest dream, playing the violine professionally, may come true. "playing the violine professionally" is the appositive phrase that adds information about the preceding noun "dream."

The gerund as object:
She (=subject) began playing the violine (=object) when she was just four years old. Her first violine (=subject) needs fixing (=object).

The gerund as object of a prepositional phrase:
Every day after school, she had to chose between playing the violine and joining her friends for a bike ride around town.

Because of its noun properties, the possessive is preferred for a noun or pronoun preceding a gerund.
We enjoyed the violinist's playing (not the violinist playing since we did not enjoy the violinist but his playing).

The –ing form as part of the verb:
She should have been practicing.

The –ing form as adjective:
Her amazing performance took our breath away.

The –ing form as the modifier of a noun in a reduced adjective clause:
"The violin, being a rather finicky instrument, must be nursed like a baby," instead of "The violin, which is a rather finicky instrument, must be nursed like a baby."


verbs that require a gerund
admit, anticipate, appreciate, avoid, complete, consider, delay, deny, discuss, dislike, enjoy,
excuse somebody’s doing something, finish, can’t help, imagine, keep doing something, mention, mind, miss, postpone, practice, put off, quit, recall, recollect, recommend, resent, resist, resume, risk, stop, suggest, tolerate, understand

prepositional verbs that require a gerund
accused of, agree/disagree with, apologize for, approve of, argued about, believe in, blame for, boast about, charge for, charge with, choose between..and..., complaining about, concentrate on, decide against, disapprove of, excuse somebody for, feel about, feel like, forget about, forgive somebody for, give up, grumbling about, hear about, insist on, interfere with, thinking of, look like, object to, part with, pay for, prepare for, prevent somebody from, protest about, punish somebody for, rely on, save somebody from, succeed in, suffering from, take up, talk somebody into, talk somebody out of, warn somebody about, worry about

prepositional adjectives that require a gerund
accustomed to, annoyed about, anxious about, ashamed of, astonished at, aware of, capable of, characteristic of, crazy about, dissatisfied with, doubtful about, enthusiastic about, excited about, famous for, fed up with, fond of, frightened of, get used to, guilty of, interested in, involved with, pessimistic about, pleased with, presented with, proud of, puzzled about, qualified for, respected for, responsible for, safe from, serious about, sick of, sorry for, sympathetic with, tired of, what's wrong with

prepositional nouns that require a gerund
advantage of, attitude to, comments on, congratulations on, delay in, difficulty with, experience in, expert on, hope of, information about, intention of, knowledge about, matter with, news of, notice of, opinion about, protection from, reaction to, report on, result of, study of, tax on, trouble with, zest for

phrases that require a gerund
it is no use, there is no point in, it is not worth, it is no good

To forget, to remember and to stop can be followed by either an infinitive or a gerund, but there will be a difference in meaning. I stopped smoking is something quite different from I stopped to smoke (meaning, I was driving but stopped in order to smoke)

Head-on

Multitasking, or performing two parallel activities, is dangerous. While walking and chewing gum may be a snap, walking while talking on the phone or even texting can be a snag because the combination of “a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car” leads to distracted walking. The problems this can cause are easy to imagine. The problem with this sentence may be less conspicuous, yet all items in a list should be not only grammatically but also logically parallel. The toy on the living room floor ditched between a stop sign and a car does not make logical sense. To call attention to the fact that the dangers of multitasking are not limited to crowded streets but may also be lurking at home, the list should move from the outside to the inside: “a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a parked (or sometimes moving) car, or even a toy left on the living room floor or a vacuum cleaner in the hallway.” However, a pedestrian would not stumble over a toy in the living room but a person would.

Fortunately, “Most times, the mishaps for a distracted walker are minor, like a lightly dinged head and broken fingernail, a jammed digit or a sprained ankle.” Again, the “jammed digit” has no connection to the physical injuries listed before and after it. “A lightly dinged head, a broken fingernail, and a sprained ankle, or a jammed digit on the pedestrian’s cell phone” joins the links of this chain more coherently.

According to a study, about 50% of those phone accidents involve young people. Yet the older and allegedly wiser are not invulnerable either. “A 68-year-old man fell off a porch while talking on a cell-phone, spraining a thumb and an ankle and causing dizziness.” “Spraining” and “causing” looks good. They are both present tense participles and thus seem to form a parallel structure. However, the sentence does not make much sense. The man was spraining a thumb and causing dizziness? What caused the dizziness was the fall and the pain from the sprained thumb. It is, therefore, more likely that the “68-year-old man fell off a porch while talking on a cell-phone, spraining a thumb and an ankle which caused dizziness.” Like pedestrians using cell-phones, the distracted writer fell prey to inattention blindness and smashed against a dangling modifier. He did not suffer any injuries, except – maybe – to his pride.