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Rishonly Posted 21 years ago
Grammar
MISPLACED MODIFIER
The XX Airlines rejected a top pilot from another airline who did stunt work for movie studios because he was rude to a receptionist.
(1) The above sentence gives an impression that the pilot did stunt work because he was rude. Am I right?
(2) The XX Airlines rejected a top pilot, who did stunt work for movie studios, from another airline because he was rude to a receptionist. Does my rewriting make sense? If not, what is the best way of describing the situation?
(3) What type of grammatical error the original sentence has?
(1) The above sentence gives an impression that the pilot did stunt work because he was rude. Am I right?
(2) The XX Airlines rejected a top pilot, who did stunt work for movie studios, from another airline because he was rude to a receptionist. Does my rewriting make sense? If not, what is the best way of describing the situation?
(3) What type of grammatical error the original sentence has?
Top answer
The above sentence gives an impression that the pilot did stunt work because he was rude. Am I right? No, I don't think so.
- The above sentence gives an impression that the pilot did stunt work because he was rude.
- Am I right?
- No, I don't think so.
- I think you're "digging too deep"!
- If parsed by a computer, that interpretation might be listed as a possibility, but I believe most people can easily disambiguate this one and come up with the intended interpretation.
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5 Answers
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The above sentence gives an impression that the pilot did stunt work because he was rude. Am I right?No, I don't think so. I think you're "digging too deep"! If parsed by a computer, that interpretation might be listed as a possibility, but I believe most people can easily disambiguate this one and come up with the intended interpretation.
Adding the commas i
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Thanks , Califjim. You are right. Before I joined this forum, I hadn't paid much attention to grammatical structure of sentences. But now , after joining this forum, I am trying to learn as much as I can, and , in turn, I tend to suspect the structure of almost every sentence that I read and dig too much. Is it good or bad? I don't know.
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Is it good or bad? I don't know.
rishonly,
I know. It's good! I think your observation is valid, and it shows you are paying attention to details. That's a good thing.
My point was just that after examining the details, we have to back up a bit and look at the whole picture again, making an evaluation of the significance of the details in the
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Hello Rishonly
How about if we rephrase your sentence as follows? Do you feel they are less ambiguous? Personally I prefer the first one.
[1] A top pilot from another airline, who did stunt work for movie studios, was rejected by the X Airlines because he was rude to receptionists.
[2] Because he was rude to receptionists, the X Airlines rejected a top pilot from another airline
How about if we rephrase your sentence as follows? Do you feel they are less ambiguous? Personally I prefer the first one.
[1] A top pilot from another airline, who did stunt work for movie studios, was rejected by the X Airlines because he was rude to receptionists.
[2] Because he was rude to receptionists, the X Airlines rejected a top pilot from another airline
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