Friday, July 27, 2012

The Joys Of Misplaced Modifiers #3

From an article about US Olympic soccer player, Hope Solo:


Conceived in jail during a conjugal visit, the Washington native's father, Jeffery John Solo, was in and out of prison throughout her childhood. 

Wait.  So her father was conceived during a prison visit?  Does that mean her grandparents were jailbirds, too?  And THEN he was in jail when Hope was a kid?  HUH???

4 comments:

  1. But the pressing question is: Does she have a brother named Hans?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, Prassana. Advertising on my site must relate to something of which I approve. You're welcome to make RELEVANT comments in the future, however.

      Delete
  3. A comment and my response on Goodreads:

    message 1: by R. Mac (new) 43 minutes ago
    funny...though I'd only tag it as illogical thinking, not misplaced modifiers.

    reply | delete | flag *
    by Lisa 0 minutes ago
    R. Mac wrote: "funny...though I'd only tag it as illogical thinking, not misplaced modifiers."
    It's both. :)
    "Conceived in jail during a conjugal visit" is a participial phrase is meant to modify Ms. Solo or the pronoun "she." However, no reference to Ms. Solo is made in the sentence, only reference to her father, so the the participial phrase ends up modifying "father" and its appositive, "Jeffery John Solo" instead, thus being illogical both grammatically and common sensically. :)

    reply | edit | delete | flag *

    ReplyDelete