Main units:

• Verbal Agreements
• Placement Services
• Pronouns Are Not for Amateurs
• Countererrorist Measures
• The Comma-ist Manifesto
• Punctuational Punctilio
• A Miscellany of Malpractice
  

  ^^  20 

Grammarians reserve the term dangling modifier for a descriptive phrase flailing and flapping about within a sentence in a futile search for a noun or a pronoun it might fittingly describe. The tragedy is that the sentence lacks any noun or pronoun to which the phrase can fasten itself in a secure and conclusive way. (The whole sorry business is about as much fun as trying to pin the tail on the donkey when the donkey hasn’t even bothered to show up.) The most that the hapless descriptive phrase can manage is cozying up to the nearest available noun or pronoun within the bounds of the sentence, but the two of them always turn out to be incompatible and make no sense together at all. In fact, they often make for a laughable match, as in the beginning of a sentence by the late John Updike, arguably the most lyrically precise describer of American life in the past half-century:

Maybe a hobbit could make the flight from Beantown to the Big Apple, but could a habit?
      The Updike excerpt reveals the irreality common to many sentences incapacitated by a dangling modifier: human activity is reportedly taking place, but nobody is present to perform it or even witness it. Such sentences are eerily unpeopled. To set things right, you need to usher into the sentence a member of the human race functioning either as an actor or as a perceiver. There are two easy ways to do that—two methods that will work for most dangling modifiers.
      The first is to expand the descriptive phrase into an adverbial dependent clause—the sort of dependent clause that begins with a subordinating conjunction (a word such as although, if, while, as, or because) and that includes both a subject (in this case, of course, the subject had better well have a pulse) and a verb.

The other way to correct the error is to let the descriptive phrase alone and do some major reconstructive work on the independent clause. You’ll need to start the new independent clause with a subject that is logically compatible with the descriptive phrase at the outset of the sentence.

Dangling modifiers also derange sentences in which the noun that the writer has intended to serve as the subject of the independent clause is locked away inside a possessive adjective—an adjective formed either by the combination of a singular noun, an apostrophe, and the letter s, or by the combination of a plural noun ending in s and an apostrophe. (Or the intended subject might have morphed itself unhelpfully into a possessive pronoun, such as her or their.) The possessive adjective is then followed by a noun with which the introductory descriptive phrase is logically unsuited.

In the second sentence of the excerpt, the writer wanted figures to serve as the subject, but that noun is stranded helplessly in the possessive adjective figures’. The result is that cuteness is forced against its will into the role of subject.

Dangling modifiers often arise from a writer’s desire to be as concise as possible at any cost, as in this sentence from an article about a dancer who goes by the name Storyboard P:

The two-word participial phrase growing up is intended to modify Storyboard, but Storyboard has been demoted from nounal status to adjectival status by dint of the clipped-on apostrophe and s. The participial phrase ends up modifying friend—at odds with the writer’s purpose. If we can assume that the best-friendship was reciprocated by Adolphus, it’s possible to rework the seventeen-word sentence without lengthening it by as much as a single word.

Another option, of course, is to enlarge the participial phrase into a dependent clause, thereby adding three words to the sentence.

Dangling modifiers come in at least ten distinct varieties. The first, the sort found in the three New Yorker excerpts exhibited above, is a present-participial phrase. Following are more examples, which have been corrected by using one or both of the two strategies already mentioned or by recomposing the grammatically debilitated sentences in other ways.

The participle in such a dangling modifier often has a direct object.

The New York Post took notice of the entire site, not just “much” of it.

It takes two persons to greet each other, but the subject of the sentence names only one of them.

The second type of dangling modifier takes the form of a past-participial phrase.

A subcategory is a dangling modifier consisting of a past-participial phrase formed from an irregular verb.

Even the mildly attentive reader is likely to do a double take: who was born in Puducherry, India—Mr. Shyamalan’s parents, as the sentence would have us believe, or Mr. Shyamalan himself? A minute’s worth of online fact-checking will yield the clarifying intelligence that it was Mr. Shyamalan who was born there.

Another subcategory consists of one or more past participles dangling all by their lonesome.

Yet another subcategory is a dangling modifier comprising one or more past participles followed by an adjectival phrase.

A third variety of dangling modifier consists of a subordinating conjunction (such as while, when, after, once, and since) followed by a present- or past-participial phrase. (An adverb sometimes appears between the subordinating conjunction and the participial phrase.)

A dangling modifier in this category might also consist of only a subordinating conjunction and a participle.

The participles in this third category of danglers might have direct objects.

A fourth sort of dangling modifier consists of a participial phrase preceded by an adverb, by one or more prepositional phrases functioning adverbially, by some other sort of phrase functioning adverbially, or by a coordinating conjunction such as but, yet, or and.

The dangling modifier in this sentence is unusually disorienting, because the context makes it clear that only two persons are present. Only one of them can thus be walking past the florist’s with a friend; the other person is the friend.

A similar error afflicts the following sentence, in which a man and a woman are walking, but the participial phrase walking through the rustic streets of a nearby village modifies the name of only the woman.

A fifth kind of dangling modifier consists of a participial phrase preceded by the combination of (1) an adverb or an adverbial phrase and (2) a subordinating conjunction.

A sixth type of dangling modifier consists of a simple prepositional phrase.

It is the brother, and not his face, who sees the writer.

The prepositional phrase will sometimes be preceded by an adverb or an adverbial phrase.

A seventh kind of dangling modifier is a more complicated prepositional phrase, in which the preposition has a gerund as its object.

The gerund sometimes has one or more direct objects.

An eighth category of dangling modifiers consists of hybrid constructions in which a subordinating conjunction is followed by an adjectival phrase.

This sentence demonstrates that the longer the distance from the subject, the more likely an introductory modifier will flail.

A ninth kind of dangling modifier is a nonparticipial adjectival phrase.

It’s the argument, not the power dynamic, that is brutal and witty.

 Sometimes the dangling adjectival phrase might be preceded by a prepositional phrase.

And sometimes the dangling adjectival phrasing might comprise a mix of adjectival elements, such as stand-alone adjectives, lone participles, and adjectival prepositional phrases.

 A tenth variety of dangling modifiers consists of miscellaneous hybrid constructions.

In this hybrid, the dangler consists of two nonparallel elements: an adjectival phrase and a noun phrase.

A dangling modifier most often appears at the start of a sentence, but it might also show up midway.

Finally, a dangling modifier might appear at the end of a sentence.

 ^^  21

Based on something a friend told me, my decision not to move to Brooklyn seems reasonable; based on what I’ve been reading about the economy, my reservations about making a career change at my age seem prudent; and based on what I remember of my childhood fears of the Goodyear blimp, my aversion to attending air shows makes perfect sense. So far, so good. But if I then go ahead and say that based on what I’ve heard about the forthcoming Morrissey CD, I don’t think I’ll buy it, my grammar and syntax and logic are shot to hell.
      Why? It’s simple, or at least it should be. If I am going to start a sentence with based on X, then the comma has to be followed by a subject that names whatever it is that X is the basis of. The subject cannot get away with naming something for which X can’t serve as the foundation. In the first three examples in the paragraph above, a decision is based on something a friend told me, reservations are based on something I’ve read, and an aversion is based on something I remember. But in the fourth example, I am based on what I’ve heard about a yet-to-be-released CD. I can be accused of many things, but being based on something I’ve heard is not one of them.
      A sentence starting with based on can easily go haywire.

The sentence is blithely declaring that many physicians are based on results—a statement that doesn’t accord with the reality of health-care practitioners based on planet Earth.

This sentence is asking readers to believe that the fellow referred to by the pronoun he is based on the results of some models’ simulation of the climate.

Here, a man is based on projected population growth.

This sentence tells the reader that the energy level of a jazz band is based on an album and live performances—and not, say, on stamina resulting from grueling practice sessions, plenty of exercise, and a sound diet.
      In each of the four excerpts, the subject of the independent clause doesn’t identify anything that is based on the nouns serving as the objects of the prepositions in the introductory based on phrasing—namely, results, growth, and album and performances.      
      Making sense out of any such sentence usually involves demolishing the based on phrasing and building part of the sentence anew.

 ^^  22

In the crowd of words in a sentence, it’s easy for a descriptive word or word-group to get separated from the word it wants to describe. The inevitable and unfortunate fate of the word or word-group that wanders off is that it ends up in the company of another word, a word with which it simply doesn’t belong. The errant word or word-group tries its best to work its descriptive powers on its new companion, and what happens next is sometimes comical but more often just plain annoying. Either way, the intended meaning of the sentence gets distorted, and everybody loses.
      The descriptive word or word-group that has lost its place in the sentence is called a misplaced modifier. The single-word modifiers most frequently misplaced are only, merely, just, and not. If the misplaced modifier is a word-group, it can be a prepositional phrase, a participial phrase, an adjectival dependent clause, or an adverbial dependent clause.  
      Whenever a modifier isn’t positioned right next to the word it’s intended to describe, you need to bring the two together. Luckily, that’s not difficult to do. It’s often just a matter of nudging the misplaced modifier either forward or backward in the sentence so that it ends up beside the word it wants to modify. (Some further but minor reconstruction of the sentence is occasionally needed as well.)
      The misplaced modifier in each of the following excerpts is underlined and takes the form of a phrase or a dependent clause.

Most people get by on six hours or fewer each night.

The nurse had a different name when she wasn’t wearing a condom? And why was she the one wearing the condom?

It sounds as if Dr. Clifford could assure his listeners that the cows would be in fine fettle and the beef would remain edible for only as long as the press briefing lasted. After that, there could be no guarantees.

Let’s hope that what the writer intended to say was that the disposal of the body, and not the completion of the investigation, would involve incineration or some other annihilative procedure.

Storyboard was seeing with his eyes, though, and not with his body.

What the writer means is that the poem itself, and not the career of the poet who wrote it, is about freedom, both personal and political.

There are only two ways to take that sentence: either the new service will be offered to businesses that happen to be small on Wednesday, or the name of the new service will be called OfferLink Local on Wednesday and then be rechristened the day after. Neither is what the writer intended to say.  
      Repositioning on Wednesday, though, leaves the sentence with another misplaced modifier:

It is the service, not the small businesses, that is called OfferLink Local.

Is it news to any reader that upstate New York is larger than Woodstock, a town of fewer than six thousand souls? The fact that the phrase larger than Woodstock is set off dramatically with a dash makes it seem as if the reader is expected to regard the news as a very big deal indeed. The writer, though, obviously intended the sentence to say something considerably different.

In a way, of course, this sentence does ring true: the fellow student was definitely not an athlete while Ms. Barrett slept at his home; he was a lout and a predator. More likely, though, the writer meant something entirely different.

She bought the roses with money, or with the equivalent of money, but not with an apologetic note.

A car had been leased to one man on another man’s corpse?

The new devices have been designed to withstand harsh environments not just for a season but for the whole year long.

The reviewer tends to prefer only apathetic and undemonstrative monsters?

. . . James Floyd as Rashid, a promising young thug who slips into his mother’s purse much of the money he scores by peddling coke
. . . .

As you’ve noticed in some of the excerpts above, revising a sentence weakened by a misplaced modifier sometimes involves more than merely repositioning the modifier. Sometimes it’s better to perform some minor restructuring.  

It was not in an art gallery that those “other people” depicted in the photographs suffered their pain.

Most misplaced modifiers in the form of phrases and dependent clauses, however, can be resituated in their sentences without much effort on your part. The same is true of misplaced single-word modifiers.

The writer surely doesn’t mean that the band is no longer permitted to subject an audience to an unending performance.

A number of contemporary writers and editors, though, think that it’s often perfectly fine to leave a single-word modifier wherever it might land in a sentence. They would argue that only a fusspot would see any reason to relocate the modifiers largely, mostly, even, just, and only in the sentences below. They would claim that readers will instantly understand what each sentence is intended to mean. Any writer, editor, and reader who is grammatically conservative, though, would most likely insist on repositioning the single-word modifier as suggested in the bracketed, italicized rephrasing following each sentence.

It’s up to you to decide whether you want to achieve the precision that’s ensured by placing only or any similar one-word modifier directly in front of the word it’s intended to modify. But if you prefer the loose, conversational-sounding placement, be forewarned that the resulting sentences can easily invite misinterpretation. What, for instance, is a reader expected to make of the sentence I’ll only call you after ten o’clock? The writer might well mean that I won’t be calling you before ten, but a reader might construe the sentence as saying The only way I’ll get in touch with you after ten is by phone; that is, I won’t be texting you, or e-mailing you, or direct-messaging you, or communicating with you in any other way after ten o’clock.
      Because many newspapers and magazines are now so casual in their placement of only and similar modifiers, a reader needs to be especially alert when confronted with a sentence in which the modifier could conceivably fill any of two or more slots, the meaning of the sentence shifting significantly with each repositioning of the word.

Only could be inserted into one of two alternative slots in the sentence.

The reader might be forced to scour the surrounding sentences for clues about where in the puzzling sentence the modifier fittingly belongs—and she still might not feel entirely confident about having grasped the writer’s intended meaning. Why not spare the reader the extra effort?

 ^^  23

A new form of inelegance has arrived on our pages and on our screens: a modifier that is neither misplaced to the detriment of the writer’s meaning (see Chapter 22) nor dangling illogically and ungrammatically (see Chapter 20). It nonetheless throws a sentence into some disarray; even inattentive readers are likely to register that something is subtly off. This error is what we might call a laggard modifier—one that shows up a little too late in the sentence. It usually takes the form of a phrase, often beginning with the preposition like or the participle including (used prepositionally), but sometimes it can be a dependent clause. A laggard modifier typically enriches a sentence by providing examples (often in a pair or in a list). But its peculiar placement jars the reader, who often can’t resist the temptation to guide the modifier backward in the sentence, repositioning it so that it follows the word, usually a noun, that it’s intended to modify.
      The laggard modifiers have been underscored in the following excerpts.

In each of the revised sentences, the parts fit together more pleasingly.

 ^^  24

If you think that this is going to be a chapter telling you that the phrase feel bad in the title should be replaced with feel badly, I’m sorry, because nowhere in this book will such wrongheaded advice be dispensed. (One should feel bad about writing badly, but feeling badly would mean there is something wrong with one’s sense of touch.)
      The trouble with the phrasing of the title is the heedless positioning of the adverb sometimes. Thanks to the writer’s carelessness, the sentence is saying two conflicting things at once, and the alert reader will wonder which of the two possible meanings is the one the writer intended. A statement susceptible of two or more clashing interpretations is said to be ambiguous.
      Beware of any modifier—either a single-word adverb, like sometimes, or an adverbial phrase—that displays itself teasingly and suggestively between two verbs or between a verb and a verbal (an infinitive, a gerund, or a participle). The result is that a reader won’t know which one of the two verbal forms the modifier belongs to. In the sentence Writers who commit this error sometimes feel bad about it, the adverb sometimes is simultaneously modifying commit and feel. But the adverb needs to pledge itself to one verb or the other—it can’t carry on with both.
      The problem can be resolved by sliding the adverb around in the sentence until it clicks into place to ensure that the statement’s meaning is in accord with the writer’s intention.

The positioning of often between assaulted and worry leaves a reader confused, if only for a millisecond, about whether the sentence means Women who have often been assaulted worry, with reason, about being victimized a second time in court or Women who have been assaulted worry, often with reason, about being victimized a second time in court. The writer most likely intended to express what the latter of those revisions states unmisleadingly.

The verb drink appears twice in the sentence—first as an intransitive verb (a verb without a direct object), then as a transitive verb (a verb with a direct object: beer). But since the adverbial modifying phrase most often is sandwiched between both appearances of drink, and therefore is modifying both drinks, how is the reader to know which one of the two verbs the phrase is intended to modify? Is the sentence telling the reader that fifty-five percent of the men who are the most frequent drinkers drink beer or that fifty-five percent of men who drink are most likely to drink beer rather than some other form of alcohol? Once the writer decides what he wants the sentence to say, he needs to revise it accordingly.

The ambiguous modifier is the phrasing unlike his contemporary Guy Pène Dubois, for example. Are we being told that Guy Pène Dubois didn’t find inspiration in artists like Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Rubens—or are we being told that Marsh, unlike Dubois, never chose to paint upper-crust subject matter? The writer obviously intended the sentence to convey the latter meaning, but a reader is in for some struggle—and at least a trip to Wikipedia to resolve matters to her satisfaction.

The adverb briefly is simultaneously modifying moved and to help, though a reader soon catches on that it is intended to modify only moved.

The adverb regularly is simultaneously modifying the infinitive to sell and the verb sweep; most likely, the writer intended it to modify sweep: Persistent rumors that B&N’s owners wish to sell are now regularly sweeping through the corridors of publishing or Persistent rumors that B&N’s owners wish to sell are now sweeping regularly through the corridors of publishing.

Occasionally is modifying both to stay loose and left. Was it only on occasion that the drummers needed to stay loose, or did the need to stay loose leave them occasionally slack? The writer obviously intended the latter interpretation, but why burden the reader with having to figure things out for herself?

The adverb surely is modifying both the infinitive to express and the verb comes. Because surely can be understood in at least two senses here, the sentence could mean either The pressure to express oneself is sure to come as much from within as from without or The pressure to express oneself with confidence and certainty comes as much from within as from without.

The adverb brilliantly modifies both the gerund watching and the verb informed. The writer most likely meant to say something of this sort: As a news junkie, Pauline had watched the content of network news being debased for years, and her years of watching and brilliantly reflecting informed her review of the picture. Or maybe not. Maybe the writer meant something along the lines of As a news junkie, Pauline had watched the content of network news being debased for years, and those years of reflecting on what she had watched found expression in her brilliant review of the picture. Again, a writer has left a reader guessing.

The adverb speedily is modifying both the infinitive phrase to develop a crush and the intransitive verb depends. The second sentence of the passage, however, makes it clear that the writer intended speedily to modify the infinitive phrase.

A writer should avoid even the remote possibility that a reader might register a modifier as ambiguous.

The writer surely doesn’t want readers to entertain the possibility that he has recently read a story aloud to a daughter who is now in middle age, but it’s awfully easy to form that impression.

 ^^  25

If you’re going to use a single-word adverb to modify a verb phrase—a phrase (such as had gone) that consists of at least one helping, or auxiliary, verb and a main verb—there’s something you ought to know. The snuggest place for that adverb is precisely to the right of the helping verb, not to the left of it and not to the right of the main verb.
      There’s a widespread resistance, though, to splitting the verb phrase. It seems to be a side effect of the fear of splitting an infinitive (see Chapter 52), but the two kinds of splits are entirely unrelated. So please do try to find the warmest spot for your adverbs.

When a verb phrase consists of two helping verbs and a main verb, the usual advice is to position the adverb after the first helping verb. Let your ear—or your intuition—guide you in choosing where an adverb might be ensconced for maximum comfort.
      Squeezing an adverbial phrase between a helping verb and a main verb or between two helping verbs, however, will inevitably result in clunkiness, as in the following two sentences from Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, by Brian Kellow (Viking).

The adverbial phrases need to be repositioned in the following two sentences as well.

Sometimes both a single-word adverb and an adverbial phrase come between a helping verb and a main verb. The single-word adverb can usually stay put, but the adverbial phrase needs to be resituated. In the four excerpts that follow, the single-word adverbs are now, never, simply, and usually.

When two or more adverbial elements pile up between the helping verb and the main verb, the result is clumsiness and congestion. 

Awkwardness is also inevitable when an adverbial element is positioned between (1) the combination of a helping verb and a main verb and (2) an infinitive.  

Finally, a clumsily situated adverb can distort the writer’s intended meaning (see Chapter 22).

 ^^  26

The next time you find yourself setting out words or word-groups in a pair or in a series, you might want to be especially alert if you’re positioning in front of the first item a modifier that you want to apply to that item alone. It may well turn out that the modifier has other things in mind. A modifier is sometimes too ambitious—not just for its own good but for the good of the entire sentence in which it appears. Instead of confining its descriptive or limital powers to the word that immediately follows it, the modifier can throw its weight forward in the sentence so that the modifier does its job on the next available word as well, even when that word was intended to remain unmodified. The result is a sentence whose meaning conflicts with the meaning intended by the writer.
      In the sentence The manager insisted that her staff never be late and be polite to all clients, for instance, the adverb never is spreading its influence far forward into the sentence. The unhappy result? It sounds as if the manager insisted that her staff never be polite to all clients. You could easily rephrase the sentence as The manager insisted that her staff never be late and that they be polite to all clients or The manager insisted that her staff arrive on time and be polite to all clients.
      In the original sentence, the modifier never was overambitious and overreaching. It refused to accept the limited role the writer had assigned to it.

The adverb not, in the second sentence, can easily be misread as applying not only to smoke but also to achieve.

The adverb seldom too easily appears to be inviting itself to modify afforded as well as exhibited.

To some readers, the adverb not will seem to be modifying both infinitive phrases—to yield to it and to continue with her punishing schedule—even though it is obviously intended to modify only the first.

Some readers will inevitably carry forward the adverb too so that it is modifying not only brassy but also insubstantial and celebrity-driven. The adverb makes sense in front of brassy and celebrity-driven. But the phrase too insubstantial raises the questions of (1) whether there is an acceptable degree of insubstantiality in a magazine’s contents and (2) whether only the insubstantiality that exceeds that degree is deplorable. (Would one say that a movie is too stupid or too insulting of a viewer’s intelligence? See Chapter 55.)

It’s too easy for a reader to push never forward to the start of the second half of the compound predicate and end up with a double negative: never had no children.

Sometimes, even after a careful examination of a sentence’s context, a reader cannot confidently and conclusively determine whether a modifier preceding a pair of adjectives is intended to modify both of them or only the first. In the following sentence, the writer most likely wanted too to modify only subjective, but how can a reader be completely certain?

In the next excerpt, from the review of a play, the possessive noun characters’ muscles its way forward and modifies dream sequences, even though the writer might have intended it to modify only vices.

Finally, a modifier can sometimes reach backward, rather than forward, and give a reader pause.

The modifier always in place throws its weight backward to beard, because both beard and yarmulke share the single article a.

With a bushy beard, and with his yarmulke always in place, he’s often found strumming. . . .

 ^^  27

If you’re going to start a sentence with a phrase like A graduate of Brooklyn College or A woman in early middle age, consider yourself safe if the very next thing you do is type a verb or a verb phrase: is flourishing would work nicely enough. But if, instead, you press the comma key, be careful. If you follow the comma with a person’s name or a subjective pronoun such as she (see Chapter 30), you’re home free. If you follow that comma with a possessive noun or a possessive pronoun, however, your sentence is a goner. You’ll end up with a miscreation like A graduate of Brooklyn College, her enthusiasm is contagious or A woman in early middle age, Fionella’s brilliance is the envy of her colleagues.
      But you won’t be alone.

So what exactly is the matter?
      Each of the sentences begins with a phrase that grammarians call an appositive—a noun phrase that volunteers information about another noun. An appositive usually follows the noun: in the sentence Jana, a renowned botanist, moved to Houston, the appositive is a renowned botanist. The noun Jana and the phrase a renowned botanist make perfect sense together.
      But when writers decide to situate an appositive like a renowned botanist at the outset of a sentence, they sometimes forget that the appositive, by its very nature, is providing an alternative name or designation for a person—a person who hasn’t yet made her official entrance into the sentence. So the only possible subject of the sentence’s independent clause (the word-group that will follow the comma) must be a noun that in one way or another functions as a name for her—and not a noun that names one of her attributes.
      In other words, the introductory appositive and the subject of the independent clause must be equivalent in meaning. An equal sign should be implied between them. But a graduate of Brooklyn College obviously can’t equal enthusiasm, and a woman in early middle age can’t equal brilliance—though that’s what the two sentences at the outset of this chapter have fatuously declared.
      To repair such sentences, you’ll need to reconstruct the independent clause so that it begins with a subject to which the appositive can be securely hinged.
      Here are renovations of the first five erroneous excerpts above:

Unhinged appositives do not limit their illogic to sentences about people.

Some sentences begin with two or more unhinged appositives in a row.

Finally, an unhinged appositive sometimes shows up in the middle or at the end of a sentence.

Sometimes, all it takes for the syntax to welcome an otherwise unassimilable appositive is to introduce a simple little prepositional hinge. 

A sentence with an unhinged appositive might also be repaired by some minor tweaking of the independent clause. In the example below, the problem is resolved by substituting rewriting, a gerund specifying a process, for rewriter, a noun specifying a type of person.

Appositives also pitch writers into punctuational quandaries (see Chapters 66-69).

 ^^  28

An appositive—a noun or a noun phrase offering information about another noun—should settle down right next to the noun it’s related to, as in the sentence you’re now reading: the phrasing set off with dashes is the appositive, and appositive is the noun it’s spilling some revealing beans about.
      A well-behaved appositive never leaves the side of its companionate noun. Many writers, though, are intent on breaking up the pair and putting some painful distance between the two. The result is that a reader sometimes can’t immediately recognize that the noun and the appositive are in fact halves of a whole.

The appositive, Wild Purveyors, needs to be positioned next to his foraging and food supply business (phrasing that is in dire need of some hyphens [see Chapter 86]).

In some sentences, it might take more than a simple repositioning to get things right.

The appositive, a treasure, infelicitously follows an adverb, since.

The appositive a terribly small number is unfortunately positioned next to 1,560, a number that is not so terribly small, rather than next to the numeral 12. And many readers will already have enough trouble on their hands, because unless they are familiar with the size of Pomona College, they may well wonder whether the writer meant to say a senior class of 1,560 instead of a student body of 1,560. Nowhere in the opinion piece from which the sentence was extracted does the writer specify that there were in fact 373 students in the graduating class.

Most likely, though, the writer positioned a terribly small number at the end of the sentence because he wanted the phrase to occupy the most conspicuous position.

The bistro is not the kitchen, although the sentence equates the two; the kitchen, of course, is merely a part of the bistro.

A reader sometimes encounters sentences in which persons are being equated with jobs or careers.

A job is something a person does to earn money, and a person is someone who might have a job or who might do a job. Often, the easiest way to set things right in sentences illogically equalizing people with their jobs is to expand the appositive into a prepositional phrase. 

In some especially disheveled sentences, the appositive is not even remotely compatible with the noun to which it is in apposition.

In the second sentence, the appositional phrasing ravaged faces barely crowned with thinning, silky hair, and musty clothes which needed changing is discordant with any of the three nouns (eyes, recognition, defeat) in the independent clause. The sentence calls for reconstructive surgery.

In the next sentence, a reader is expected to accept as equivalents the subject of the independent clause (visit) and the object of a preposition (place) in the predicate.

In the longish sentence that follows, the writer unreasonably expects the reader to accept as equivalents the object of a preposition (meals) and the three objects of the participle including (drinkers, eater, and character).

Drinkers, an eater, and a character are not meals.

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