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After reviewing the quiz...
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Dangling modifiers creep into our speaking and writing all the time, but you all are pretty good at spotting one 🧐 If you didn't take last week's quiz, you might be thinking, "What are dangling modifiers and how can I avoid them?" Dangling modifiers occur when a sentence begins with an adjectival modifier but the subject of that modifier is misplaced in the sentence or simply isn't there at all. Longtime newsletter readers will be familiar with our favorite high-profile example that's easily recognizable to NFL fans: "After reviewing the play, the ruling on the field stands." That sentence, often spoken by referees when they're announcing the result of a review of a play on the field, implies "the ruling" reviewed the play. But that's not possible. The referees reviewed it. Thus, the correct sentence is, "After reviewing the play, the officials have determined that the ruling on the field stands." Here's how we break down spotting and fixing dangling modifiers in our free grammar guide: Speaking of spotting and fixing errors in your writing: that's what our new Google Docs extension helps you do. Educators who want to have it ready for their students to use in the fall can sign up by June 30 and get three months free. Use code SUMMER2025 at checkout. With Memorial Day coming up on Monday, we have a holiday-inspired quiz question this week:
And remember, it's "Memorial Day weekend," not "Memorial Day Weekend." We get that question every year. Have a great weekend! ❤ Team Stylebot
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Hone your writing skills and never use "hone in" again. Get writing tips, have fun with words and learn something new in a one-minute read each week by signing up for Stylebot’s newsletter.
To write the phrase do's and don'ts, you need to create your own list of do's and don'ts. Do you, for example, stay consistent on apostrophe use, or do you instead insert an extra apostrophe for clarity? You can see that we opt for the latter, but that's not what you prefer. The vast majority of you who took last week's quiz like "dos and don'ts." We can relate. As longtime newsletter readers know, one of our pet peeves is when people unnecessarily add an apostrophe along with the "s" to make...
If you picked "whomever" in last week's quiz, why did you do that? "Well," you might have said to yourself, "whomever is for objects." That's true. But consider this sentence: The boss said she'll recommend whoever/whomever performs best. Would you make the same choice? We can get two lessons out of last week's quiz. There's subjects and objects: Subjects carry out the verb of a sentence, while objects receive the action of the verb. In the sentence, "She will recommend him," "she" is the...
Last week's quiz question might have seemed confusing because of the lesson that preceded it about subject-verb agreement, but most of you got it right. "Neither" usually takes singular verbs, and even though "of the options" is right next to the verb, it doesn't affect the verb since it's a prepositional phrase. What writing challenges trip you up? Remember that we're happy to tackle them in this newsletter. Submit your questions here. In the meantime, here's this week's quiz: The boss said...