The last few days have been
sort of surreal around here. The news out of Boulder has made national
headlines: torrential rain, raging floods, roads severed and washed away,
people stranded, whole mountain towns evacuated. Where we live, a bit east of
and higher than the flooded heart of Boulder, we had the torrential rains, but virtually none of the
flooding—nothing, really, other than full gutters, perpetually gray skies, and
rain varying from drizzle to deluge. It’s been hard to reconcile those two
experiences: the scenes on the news are so awful, but looking out my window, it just seems like an especially rainy period. Since we’ve been asked not to drive in or around Boulder, we haven’t
seen the tragic, terrifying parts—except as everyone else did: online and on
TV. So getting a grasp of it all has been confusing, at best. Soon, I’ll share some thoughts about all that, once I get my mind wrapped
around it. Which is a far smaller task than many people are facing, for sure.
Meanwhile, on a lighter note
(which also seems odd in the midst of this crisis), before the “rain event,”
before the flood, something came up that I want to comment on. I need to fess
up to an error, an “erratum,” in the language
of newspapers, which provide lists of the previous day’s errata in each issue. The backstory:
Back in the distant mists of
my childhood, I learned about the importance of putting parts of sentences in
the right place. Words put close to other words imply an association between
them. Similar rules apply to phrases, clauses, sentences, etc. When you stick
something next to something else that doesn’t belong with it, you get a
“dangling modifier.” It sounds a little like a painful medical condition, but,
I learned, it can be very confusing to readers.
Consider, for example, the title
of an old Patti Page song (which some of you may remember), “Throw Momma from the Train.”
It sounds like more might be dangling here than a modifier. You had to listen to the lyrics to get the real meaning: “Throw momma from the
train a kiss, a kiss. Wave momma from the train a goodbye.”
We’ve all encountered sentences like this. Some of us have even created our own. I know I have. Despite those childhood lessons and although my day job involves cleaning up other folks’ writing, those dangling errors still creep into my own. Like just the other day.
We’ve all encountered sentences like this. Some of us have even created our own. I know I have. Despite those childhood lessons and although my day job involves cleaning up other folks’ writing, those dangling errors still creep into my own. Like just the other day.
I realized something was amiss when, after my recent blog post
called “Feeling fine,” I started to get warm and enthusiastic good wishes for
my 75th birthday. The confusing part of this was that I didn’t have a
birthday—at least not recently, and then it wasn’t my 75th. That one
isn’t many years down the road, but it hasn’t happened yet. Clearly, something I wrote was misleading. I messed up a sentence. I dangled a modifier.
“Today,” I wrote in that blog,
“I went for a swell 75th birthday walk and picnic with a friend.” Now,
in retrospect, I can see full well why that would make birthday wishes seem in
order. And 75th birthday
wishes at that—a major milestone definitely worthy of celebration. What I
didn't make clear was that the outing I mentioned was
in honor of my friend’s 75th
birthday, not mine. Dangle, dangle. How much clearer it would have been if I
had written, “Today, a friend and I went for a swell walk and picnic to
celebrate her 75th birthday.”
This experience has reminded
me of another of the cardinal rules of careful writing: pay attention to your
assumptions. Don’t assume that other folks have the same understanding of what
you write as you have. In this case, since I
knew full well that I meant my friend’s birthday, I apparently assumed that everyone
else did, too. Besides, if I had given it a second thought (which I didn’t), I
might even have persuaded myself that my point was clear because I later mentioned
that she is 75 … not considering that this had nothing to do with whether I was having a 75th
birthday. (Do I think there's a rule that only one person can be 75 at a time?)
A clinical psychologist might
call my failure to see others’ perspective something like narcissism. A
developmental psychologist (like yours truly) might call it cognitive
egocentrism. Or, we could just call it a mistake. An “erratum.” I guess if the New
York Times is willing to own up to its errata,
then I should do the same. So …
Ooops! I
misspoke. I didn’t have a birthday. My friend did. I’ll tell her you all send
belated wishes for a great day and a wonderful year ahead.
Haha! And oops! From one of the friends who was hung up by your dangling modifier.
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