DEAR RICHARD: In a recent edition of the Union-Tribune, I read the following sentence:
“Santee leaders passed an ordinance banning children under age 12 from riding e-bikes in
December.” Why only in December? – James Huizenga, Clairemont

James Huizenga offers a spot-on example of what happens when one’s modifiers go
south — or north or anywhere too far away from the words they are supposed to modify: The AP
Press Guide to News Writing advises: “The language has many ways to trip you up, most
deviously through a modifier that turns up in the wrong place. Don’t let related ideas in a
sentence drift apart. Modifiers should be close to the word they purport to modify.”

Pioneer television broadcaster and interviewer Barbara Walters experienced a long and
distinguished career. Fix your eyes on reports about three of her interviews:

• Yoko Ono talks about her husband John Lennon, who was killed in an interview with
  Barbara Walters.
• Former hostage Terry Waite talks about his five years of captivity in Beirut with
  Barbara Walters.
• The diving and amateur sports community remained in shock today following
  revelations that Olympic diver Greg Louganis, who speaks freely of his contracting
  AIDS in a 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters.

In all three stories, the phrase “with Barbara Walters” doesn’t appear to modify what it was supposed to. What was there about Barbara Walters, we ask, that compelled people to dangle their participles in public?

In the original film version of Mary Poppins, Bert the Chimney Sweep tells Uncle Albert,
“I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith.”
“And what’s the name of the other leg?” Albert asks with a laugh, and “a wooden leg named Smith” becomes a running joke throughout the film.

That’s the problem with dangling participles and misplaced modifiers. They leave us firmly planted on midair. They spin the brain into images of a surreal world: I’ve got bells that jingle jangle jingle and phrases that dangle dingle dangle:

• We saw many bears driving through Yellowstone Park.
• After year of being lost under a pile of dust, Chester D. Thatcher found all the old records of the Bangor Lions Club at the Bangor house.
• No one was injured in the blast, which was attributed by a build-up of gas by a town official.With his tail held high, my father led his prize bull around the arena.
• I wish to express my thanks to the U.S. Postal Service for the great, kind service they give and for patience they have with little old ladies in mailing packages.
• Plunging 1,000 feet into the gorge, we saw Yosemite Falls.
• Jewel has certainly made her mark by being perhaps the first folksinger to take the stage with a guitar in four-inch heels and a miniskirt.
• One couldn’t help but be aware of the stallion Royal Rich sitting in the stands the last couple nights.
• As a baboon who grew up wild in the jungle, I realized that Wiki had special nutritional needs.
• He ran outside and chased after the cat with a broomstick in his underwear.
• LOST. A walking stick by an elderly man with a curiously carved ivory head.
• The bride was given in marriage by her father, wearing her mother’s wedding dress.

What do the following wayward modifiers have in common?

• Grodskins was arrested for illegal consumption of alcohol by the Sheriff’s
  Department.
• The marriage was annulled in December on the grounds of adultery in the
  Philadelphia County Court.
• Bernard Constantino pleaded guilty to charges of distributing marijuana Wednesday
  in front of Judge Johnson.
• The juror was never asked if she had been molested by either defense or prosecution
  attorneys.
• The cause of the blaze has been determined to be arson by Sheriff Detective Ronald
  Walker.

Do these reports offer evidence that the police and courts are corrupt? No way! Instead, each statement is afflicted by a delinquent modifier.