Underline the dangling modifier in each of the following sentences.

1. Leaving quickly, her car lights were left on.
2. While exercising, my shirt tore.
3. Once filled with ink, you can write for hours before the pen runs dry.
4. Standing on the runaway, a plane will hit you.
5. Having done the dishes and vacuumed the floors, her house looked decent again.

Question

Underline the dangling modifier in each of the following sentences.

1. Leaving quickly, her car lights were left on.
2. While exercising, my shirt tore.
3. Once filled with ink, you can write for hours before the pen runs dry.
4. Standing on the runaway, a plane will hit you.
5. Having done the dishes and vacuumed the floors, her house looked decent again.

Vocaloid · Answer

I will not do the whole thing but I will help you get started.

Recall that a modifier gives more information to the word being modified.

A dangling modifier is a modifier that does not logically refer to anything in the sentence.

For sentence 1, notice how “leaving quickly” is meant to modify the person with the car, but notice how the person is not actually mentioned in the sentence. Because “leaving quickly” is placed next to “her car lights,” the sentence implies that “leaving quickly” is somehow modifying “her car lights.”

This is illogical, since the lights are not doing the leaving.

Therefore, “leaving quickly” is the dangling modifier.

Repeat this logic for the other answer choices.