|
In my new book, The 10 Most Annoying English Grammar Errors, I gave
the following sentence as an exercise in doing battle with footloose
modifiers: “When deciding on places to go to during your summer
vacation, it ultimately becomes a matter of how far your budget can
bring you.” I then provided this reconstruction to get rid of the
dangling modifier in that sentence: “When deciding on the places
to go to during your summer vacation, you will find that they will
ultimately depend on how far your budget can take you.” I
explained that the “it” in the main clause of the original
sentence isn’t a proper subject (it’s actually an expletive or
filler word), so we need a legitimate subject like “you” to make
the sentence work properly.
Early this week, though, Danny R. of a large
Philippine bank sent me e-mail asking if the following
reconstruction of the original sentence is also correct: “Deciding
on places to go during your summer vacation ultimately becomes a
matter of how far your budget can bring you.” He explained that he
followed Strategy #3 as prescribed in my book to make the original
sentence more concise.
My reply to Danny was as follows: “Your
reconstruction of the problematic sentence is much better and even
more forthright than the ones I supplied in the book. Of course,
this became possible because you changed the structure of the
modifying phrase from a ‘when’-format to a gerund phrase. In
actual practice, I would encourage you to find the best and most
concise construction for problematic sentences—which is precisely
what you’ve done. When taking tests under a straitlaced teacher or
when editing the work of your boss, however, it would be prudent to
stay within the parameters of the original sentence construction.
You may not be able to achieve the best possible grammatical
construction that way, but you certainly would minimize hurt
feelings.”
This reply drew a refreshingly crisp, clear, and
grammatically airtight rejoinder from Danny that I now would like to
share with readers:
Dear Joe,
Thank you for praising my reconstruction. Coming
from you, I find that a delightful compliment.
I am 55 years old and, quite fortunately, no
longer face the specter of a straitlaced English teacher. My boss,
whose writing skill I also admire, does not have reason to correct
my grammar—pardon the boast—although sometimes she finds the
need to improve on the flow of thoughts in my reports. When she
does, believe me, I follow what she wants. On the other hand, my
work allows me to read and edit voluminous reports, and
notwithstanding that I truly love this part of my job, I oftentimes
cringe at the way people violate even the most basic rules of
grammar. Annoying is indeed the right word.
English Plain and Simple is by far the most
helpful grammar book I’ve ever read. I’m proud that it was
written by a Filipino. I really think it should be a required
textbook in high school and college. Even the training departments
of corporations will find the book an invaluable tool in their
efforts to improve the quality of the written and spoken English of
their officers and staff.
The English language is one area where I believe
we Filipinos have really deteriorated and lost our edge. We can
plainly see this decline even in the articles in our revered dailies
and magazines, as you yourself have observed.
I hope it’s not a lonely battle for you, Joe,
but I salute and commend you for your work. Keep it up!
Danny
Here’s my open reply to Danny’s rejoinder:
Sometimes it does get so lonely fighting the
long war against bad English, but every time I receive from readers
admirably clear and good writing like yours, my resolve to keep up
the fight returns and I cheerfully go back to battle again.
|
