Sep 19 2008
Avoid Ambiguous Modifiers
Read the following sentence and decide what it means:
I work out frequently without feeling any satisfaction.
Does it mean “I work out frequently, and I don’t feel any satisfaction from doing so?” or
“I work out, but frequently feel no satisfaction from it?”
It could go either way, and the meanings are clearly different. So the sentence is ambiguous. Shame on the writer.
The problem is, it’s not clear what part of the sentence the modifier “frequently” modifies. If it modifies the phrase that precedes it, the meaning is “I often work out and never get satisfaction from it.” But if it modifies the phrase that follows it, it implies “When I work out, I often get no satisfaction from it … but sometimes I do.”
The fix could be as simple as adding a well-placed comma, as in …
Ah, the comma. What I wonderful little device it is. It packs more clarifying power per pixel than anything else in our quirky language, with the possible exception of the period. Thank you, Shakespeare, for inventing it.
