Informational Site Network Informational.ca Privacy
    Home   Articles   Quiz Questions   Punctuation   Search

Speaking Writing Articles

Prepositions And The Objective Case
Don't forget that prepositions always take the objective case...

Purity
Purity of style consists in using words which are reputable, ...

Capital Letters
Capital letters are used to give emphasis to or call attentio...

Requirements Of Speech
It is very easy to learn how to speak and write correct...

Past Tensepast Participle
The interchange of these two parts of the irregular or so-cal...

Suggestions
Rules of grammar and rhetoric are good in their own pla...

Conjunction
A conjunction joins words, clauses and sentences; as "John an...

Each, Every, Either, Neither
These words are continually misapplied. Each can be applied t...


LOOSE PARTICIPLES




Common Stumbling Blocks - Peculiar Constructions - Misused Forms.

A participle or participial phrase is naturally referred to the nearest
nominative. If only one nominative is expressed it claims all the
participles that are not by the construction of the sentence otherwise
fixed. "John, working in the field all day and getting thirsty, drank
from the running stream." Here the participles working and getting
clearly refer to John. But in the sentence,--"Swept along by the mob I
could not save him," the participle as it were is lying around loose and
may be taken to refer to either the person speaking or to the person
spoken about. It may mean that I was swept along by the mob or the
individual whom I tried to save was swept along.

"Going into the store the roof fell" can be taken that it was the roof
which was going into the store when it fell. Of course the meaning
intended is that some person or persons were going into the store just as
the roof fell.

In all sentence construction with participles there should be such
clearness as to preclude all possibility of ambiguity. The participle
should be so placed that there can be no doubt as to the noun to which it
refers. Often it is advisable to supply such words as will make the
meaning obvious.





Next: BROKEN CONSTRUCTION
Previous: AND WITH THE RELATIVE


Add to del.icio.us Add to Reddit Add to Digg Add to Del.icio.us Add to Google Add to Furl Add to Stumble Upon
Add to Informational Site Network
Report
Privacy
SHAREBOOKMARK