“Darling, your participles are dangling!”
Some elements of English SPAG are hard-and-fast rules; others are more to do with nuance. Today’s topic, by contrast, is about unintentional silliness. Yes, we’re talking about you, dangling participles.
Right. Great. Er… what’s a participle?
Well, there are two types of participle in English:
The present participle (walking, seeing, waving, telling, etc.) combines with the verb ‘be’ to make the continuous tenses (e.g. ‘I am going’ or ‘we were telling).
The past participle (walked, broken, drunk, gone, etc.) combines with the verb ‘have’ to make the perfect or pluperfect tenses. (E.g. ‘I have walked’ and ‘I had gone’.) It can also be used on its own as an adjective. (E.g. ‘A broken window’ or ‘that man is drunk!’)
So far, so tense-y. But participles can also be used on their own. You can use them to avoid repeating the subject of a verb, to make two ideas flow together more smoothly, or simply to add variety to your sentence structure.
‘Putting my thinking cap on, I started to brainstorm silly uses for the present participle.’
‘Satisfied with my silliness, I decided a snack was in order.’
Pretty handy, right? However, it’s this use that can lead to the aforementioned dangling participles.
How do you dangle a participle then?
You don’t! Or at least, you try very hard not to. The trick with using a lone participle is that it has to have the same subject as the main verb in the sentence. In other words, the person or thing ‘doing’ the participle must be the same person or thing ‘doing’ the other verb.
‘Ripping open the packet with my bare hands, I scoffed the entire bar of chocolate down in thirty seconds flat.’ [I ripped the packet open and I scoffed the chocolate.]
‘Tired out from all that scoffing, I took a nap.’ [I was tired, and I took a nap.]
The silliness begins when you accidentally introduce a second subject, and it almost exclusively happens when the participle is near the beginning of the sentence.
Finally relaxed after a long bath, her doorbell gave a loud ring. [Wow, it sounds like that doorbell had a really stressful day.]
Finishing my dessert, Harry proposed a toast. [Dammit Harry, I was looking forward to that crème brûlée!]
I’ve also read more than a few… ahem… spicy scenes in books where the dangling participle (not a euphemism) has led to some rather puzzling mental images of… well, which body part belongs to which person. If you catch my drift…
Anyway, to correct the sentences above you’d need to put in a proper verb phrase (i.e. tell us what or who is ‘doing’ the participle) and usually some kind of linking or sequencing expression:
She had finally relaxed after a long bath when her doorbell gave a loud ring.
As I was finishing my dessert, Harry proposed a toast.
Catch my drift? Now it’s your turn! Have a go at fixing the silliness in the sentences below. (Suggested answers are at the bottom of the page!)
Growling viciously, Georgia backed away nervously from the rabid dog.
Padding forward on silent paws, Sarah shrieked as the cat dropped a dead mouse at her feet.
Perched on the holly bush, James thought the robin looked adorable.
Is this the same thing as a ‘dangling modifier’?
Yes! Participles are a just a particular type of modifier. Other modifiers, like adjectives or adverbial phrases, can also be ‘dangled’; it just seems to happen a lot more frequently to participles.
After months of gathering dust, I finally opened my laptop and started writing my novel. [Implies I now have a collection of dust-filled jars.]
Ravenous after a long morning at work, the green salad did not look appealing. [Suggests the salad has a solid work ethic.]
You’re pros by now though, so I’m sure you can fix the errors above without any suggestions from me!
I hope that’s helped, anyway. As you’ve seen, this type of error could definitely get in the way of a dramatic or romantic moment in your novel, so it’s definitely something to be aware of as you proofread your own work. But of course, this is also the sort of thing copyeditors are trained to spot, so don’t panic too much about getting everything absolutely perfect. (It takes a village to get a book published, after all!)
Suggested answers:
Georgia backed away nervously from the rabid dog, which was growling viciously. / Georgia backed away nervously from the rabid dog as it growled viciously.
Sarah shrieked as the cat padded forward on silent paws and dropped a live mouse at her feet. / The cat padded forward on silent paws and Sarah shrieked as it dropped a live mouse at her feet.
Perched on the holly bush, the robin looked adorable. (The added advantage here is you remove that ‘filtering verb’ and let us see directly into James’s thoughts.) / James thought the robin perched on the holly bush looked adorable. / James thought the robin looked adorable perched on the holly bush.