About dangling modifier

Question

The following is a sentence from an article of a reading comprehension test.

"Living in the so-called information explosion era, the ability of telling the accuracy of the acquired information is required."

Is this sentence gramatically correct? It's weird to me because the subject of the sentence is " the ability", which is apparently not consistent with the omiited subject in the adverbial phrases, "Living in the so-called...".

I'm not sure if the "living" here can be taken as "a marginal preposition". If it can, is it common?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

This is a terrible sentence, with a lot of flaws.

I'm sure it was not writtn by a native speaker.

Clive

Fuzz · Answer

Thanks for replying!! Would you mind being specific about the flaws or should I just ignore this sentence?

Clive · Answer

Hi,

"Living in the so-called information explosion era, the ability of telling the accuracy of the acquired information is required."

Living in the so-called information explosion era is a dangling modifer.

The ability of telling . . . should be 'the ability to tell' .

The definite article in 'the acquired information' seems inappropriate.

There is no indication of who is doing the acquiring or who is doing the requiring. In addition, that whole part of the wording is clumsy and unnatural.

Clive

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