Illogical Dangling Participles

What Is a Participle?
Before we talk about what it means to dangle a participle, we have to answer the question
What is a participle?

It’s a tough question because participles have a few different jobs. Today, we’re only going
to talk about their job that makes them look like adjectives. They tell you more about the
noun that follows.

Participles can be in the present tense or the past tense, and the present participle always
ends with "ing." For example, "dream" is a verb, and "dreaming" is its present participle.
"Speed" is a verb, and "speeding" is its present participle. To use the verb, you could say,
"He will speed on the freeway." "Speed" is an action, a verb.

To use "speeding" as an adjective-like participle, you could say "Follow that speeding car."
"Speeding" acts something like an adjective modifying the noun "car." It tells you what the
car is doing—what kind of car it is—a speeding car.

Here's another example: "hike" is a verb, and "hiking" is the present participle. To use the
verb, you could say "Let's hike the trail." To use the participle, you could say, "Wait for the
hiking campers to get back.” "Hiking," the participle, tells you what the campers are
doing—what kind of campers they are—hiking campers.

Participles have another role too: They help form the perfect and progressive verb tenses,
but we won't talk about those here.

What Is a Participial Phrase?

So now I trust that you understand how to use verb and their participles, but to understand
dangling participles, we need to talk about participial phrases.* These are just phrases that
contain a participle and modify the subject of the sentence.

They can include words besides the participle, such as prepositions, pronouns, and nouns,
but for now, we'll just focus on the idea that they contain a participle like "speeding" or
"hiking." The way they modify the subject isn't as straightforward as a single adjective
modifying a single noun, but the participial phrase is still modifying a noun—the subject.

Here are some examples to help make it clearer:

Floating in the pool, I marveled at the clouds.

"Floating in the pool" is the participial phrase that modifies the subject, "I." "Floating" is
the participle in the phrase "floating in the pool." It describes what I am doing.
Here's another one:

Biting his victim, the vampire felt a momentary thrill.

"Biting his victim" is the participial phrase that modifies the subject, "the vampire."
"Biting" is the participle in the phrase "biting his victim." It describes what the vampire is
doing.

And one last example:

Beating you over the head with examples, I hope to make you understand participial
phrases.

"Beating you over the head with examples" is the participial phrase modifying the subject,
"I." "Beating" is the participle in the phrase "beating you over the head with examples." It
describes what I am doing.

A dangling participle modifies an unintended subject.

In all three of those examples, the subject that was being modified by the participial phrase
came right after the phrase. It was sticking close to the modifier so you couldn't miss it. The
participial phrase doesn't have to be at the beginning of a sentence, but that is the place
where it's most likely to dangle, so we'll stick with that format today.

Dangling Participles
Now we're ready to learn about dangling participles.

When you dangle a participle, it means your participial phrase is hanging there in your
sentence with no proper subject in sight. They hate that as much as you hate it when a
friend stands you up for lunch.

Here’s an example:

Hiking the trail, the birds chirped loudly.

The birds are the only subject in the sentence, and they directly follow the participial
phrase. The participial phrase has to grab on to something, so it grabs the only subject—the
birds. So what that sentence says is that the birds were hiking the trail, and that's probably
not what I mean. There was probably somebody hiking the trail and hearing the birds
chirping loudly.

We can fix it by adding the proper subject right after the participial phrase:
 Hiking the trail, Squiggly and Aardvark heard birds chirping loudly.

Here's another dangling modifier:

Wishing I could sing, the high notes seemed to taunt me.

Did you see the problem? The high notes are the only subject in the sentence, so the
participial phrase "wishing I could sing" attaches to that noun because it doesn't want to
dangle. That makes a sentence that says the high notes wish I could sing. If they were
capable of wishing, they might wish I could sing, but what I'm really trying to say in that
sentence is

Wishing I could sing, I feel taunted by the high notes.

In that sentence, "wishing I could sing" correctly modifies the subject "I," and it makes a lot
more sense than imagining cringing high notes.