Lesson 8: Use the Right Modifiers
Introduction to Modifiers
In English grammar, modification refers to the meaning that one or more words attach to another word or group of words. For example, I can write:
They accepted our plan.
or
They accepted our business plan.
In the second sentence, the word “business” modifies, or focuses the meaning of, the “plan” I’m referring to.
I can focus further, of course:
They accepted the business plan that we proposed last night.
Now I’ve told you that the business plan is one that we proposed last night. The word “plan” appears with a single modifying word (an adjective) on the left and an entire modifying clause (a restrictive, adjectival clause) on the right.
Each modifying element reaches out to the noun “plan” to qualify (modify) the meaning of the word. One modifier reaches immediately forward to do its job, and the other reaches immediately backward. We can understand the meaning of the sentence only by understanding its patterns of word groups and modifications.
Grammarians call these groupings and patterns of modification the syntax of the sentence–literally, the way the elements of a sentence are “arranged together.”
Unlike some other languages, English depends heavily upon word order. Consider, for example, the different meanings we create when we shift the position of a single word in the base sentence “Sara called Robin a snitch in private.”
- Only Sara called Robin a snitch in private.
- Sara only called Robin a snitch in private.
- Sara called only Robin a snitch in private.
- Sara called Robin only a snitch in private.
- Sara called Robin a snitch only in private.
- Sara called Robin a snitch in private only.
In fairly simple sentences, we normally place modifying words and phrases immediately before the word(s) they modify. That’s why, for example, we understand sentence #1 above to indicate that Sara was the only person calling Robin a snitch in private, and sentence #3 to mean that Robin was the only one to whom Sara attached that name in private.
It’s not quite that simple, of course, as my earlier “business plan” sentence demonstrated. Variations #5 and #6 show that “only” could modify “in private” either by reaching forward (in #5) or backward (in #6).
Further, we recognize that our voice inflections, as well, can modify the meanings of the sentences. For example, we understand from sentence #4 that Sara’s offense was not really very serious (she didn’t call Robin something terrible; she called her only a snitch). But we would understand essentially the same thing from sentence #2 if a speaker were to inflect her voice something like this: “Sara only called Robin a snitch in private!”
This doesn’t cut across my point, though: clearly, the vocal inflection, or its representation typographically, is just another way of getting the word “only” up close to “snitch” so that it can modify that word. One way or another, you’ve got to write, and speak, in such a way that your audience can easily perceive what modifies what in your communications. When you don’t do that, people get annoyed and (often) confused.
Dangling Modifiers
For instance, you’ve heard the term “dangling modifier.” Here’s an example:
Concerned about the possibility of contamination, the beakers were sterilized.
The initial phrase is looking for a subject to modify, so it latches on to the first one to come along: “beakers.” But wait; beakers don’t feel concern; people do.
What we meant was something like this:
Concerned about the possibility of contamination, researchers sterilized the beakers.
In our revision, we’ve provided an appropriate subject, “researchers,” for the previously dangling modifier to hook on to. (Note that our decision to use active voice was key in placing that subject where it could get properly modified!)
Here’s a similar modification problem: the squinting modifier, a modifier that can look either forward or backward to modify something: Taking antibiotics too frequently weakens the body’s own immune efforts. The adverbial phrase “too frequently” could reach back to modify the “taking” verb phrase, or forward to modify the “weakens” verb phrase. A good writer will clear up the ambiguity by writing either:
When we take antibiotics too frequently, we weaken the body’s own immune efforts.
or
Taking antibiotics weakens the body’s own immune efforts too frequently.
So, depends on what you mean. The second revision shoved “too frequently” out to the end of the sentence so that its modifying powers couldn’t reach back any further than the “weakens” verb. But the first revision was a little more complex. It creates a pattern of modification: “When we take X, we weaken Y.” This is a basic pattern you should recognize after wading through Lesson 6: Use Parallel Form.
Modifiers can be misplaced in all sorts of ways. Some misplacements are serious, confusing the reader. Others are less serious but do a little damage to your reputation as a master of style. Still other misplacements have become so common in American English that most people no longer recognize them as stylistic mistakes.
For example, Captain Picard tells us the mission of the starship Enterprise is “to boldly go where no one has gone before.” But if Star Trek: The Next Generation had been made primarily for a British audience, Picard likely would have said, “boldly to go where no one has gone before.” That’s because most Britons consider it sinful to split an infinitive (like “to go”).
Well they at least look upon such splits as stylistic errors. Americans no longer do—so long as the split is not too great. You can get away with “to boldly go where no one has gone before,” but don’t try “to boldly and without the hesitation that so often mires the progress of the technologies that have hitherto advanced the progress of nations that have invested in space programs go where no one has gone before.”
Whew. I think I need a sandwich to restore my mental energy.
So far we’ve been dealing with fairly short sentences, and it’s been easy to fix modification problems. All we’ve had to do is pay attention to getting modifier and thing modified in close proximity, and in some cases to insert a missing subject into a clause so that the modifier can clearly attach itself to the thing it’s meant to modify.
What’s that? Shouldn’t this be enough, since good technical/professional writing is always composed of short, economical sentences?
No. Here’s where we move on to a new level of stylistic sophistication. True, I’ve been encouraging you to write with economy, especially in the sense of using active voice, denominalizing, pruning words, and reducing jargon. All this tends to reduce sentence length. But often, complex thought calls for a peppering of complex, longer sentences. The best writing is not an unending series of staccato sentences, page after page. The best writers mix their sentence lengths. Some are short, some longer, some quite long.
Restrictive and Non-restrictive Clauses
One common way to combine chunks of thought within a single sentence is to use restrictive and non-restrictive clauses (relative clauses) as modifiers. Let’s examine that method, starting with fairly short sentences and progressing to longer ones:
The robot won the competition.
Now let’s say we want to modify the word “robot” by specifying which one, out of the hundreds entered, won the competition.
The robot that University of Tennessee engineering students built won the competition.
The clause “that University of Tennessee engineering students built” is actually a full sentence in its own right; it amounts to “University of Tennessee engineering students built [that robot].” But for our purposes of “sentence combining,” we’ve chosen to nest one clause (sentence) inside another, allowing one to modify an element of the other.
The phrase “that University of Tennessee engineering students built” modifies the word “robot” in the basic sentence “The robot won the competition.” Notice that it modifies in a special way: it singles out a particular robot from among the hundreds entered; it therefore limits or “restricts” the meaning of robot, so we call it a “restrictive clause.”
Traditionally, we start such clauses with the word “that” or “who,” although modern usage now allows “which.” We omit punctuation at both ends of the clause; this is really the clearest sign we mean it to be restrictive. If we wish to fashion the restrictive clause without the “that” or “who” or “which,” we can do so:
The robot University of Tennessee engineering students built won the competition.
or
The robot built by University of Tennessee engineering students won the competition. [Passive voice] The above sentence is just short for “The robot that was built by University of Tennessee engineering students won the competition,” and it still creates a modifying, restrictive clause.
But what if the scenario is different? Let’s say that only one robot was entered into the competition. It was a competition among various kinds of inventions, you see—new concepts in fishing poles, innovative eating utensils, etc. The main thing you’re announcing is that the darned little robot won the competition! The fact that UT engineering students built the robot adds some interesting info about the robot, but it doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of the sentence. Our sentence doesn’t have to single out the UT robot from among other robots.
This scenario calls for a non-restrictive clause:
The robot, which University of Tennessee engineering students built, won the competition.
Or, if we use the modern option of “that” to begin a non-restrictive clause, we get:
The robot, that University of Tennessee engineering students built, won the competition.
I recommend sticking to the traditional signal of “which” to start off non-restrictive clauses. But either way, remember to punctuate each end of the clause with commas or parentheses or dashes. That signals the non-restrictiveness of the clause. At least, it does so among those who understand this convention of English.
Restrictive and non-restrictive clauses make good modifiers—in moderation. The only problem is, it’s easy to abuse them, just as it’s easy to pile too many prepositional phrases into a sentence or to jam together too many nouns and adjectives.
For the purposes of an amusing song or poem, this may be fine: “This is the woman who ate the pig that swallowed the frog that ate the fly,” etc. But in professional writing, such clause stacking makes a very poor modification scheme:
A research team that tracks hydroflow that is not willing to work in the extreme weather conditions that prevail in Canada produces results that fall below the standards of teams that are willing to work anywhere, in any conditions that present themselves.
To improve this sentence, try transforming the first relative (restrictive) clause into an introductory subordinate clause, and don’t hesitate to prune unnecessary words:
When a hydroflow research team isn’t willing to work in the extreme weather conditions that prevail in Canada, it can’t match the results of teams willing to work anywhere, in any conditions.
Basically, readers don’t like to process two or more relative clauses in a row, nor do they like to read more than one such clause attached to any one independent clause. Unless maybe you have a sophisticated prose architecture going on.
Note: if the non-restrictive clause falls at the end of the sentence, the terminal punctuation is of course a period.
Modifiers and Parallelism
Here’s the exception to the “no clause stacking” rule: as you get better at sentence and paragraph architecture, you can do some stacking, because your stacks take clear shape. For example, now that you’re an expert at parallel form, you can use it to create an occasional longer sentence full of restrictive and non-restrictive clauses:
Our government regulates companies that manufacture soft tools, which are easily hidden and shared, as well as those that manufacture hard tools, which are harder to hide and share.
It’s not really a sin to string together more than one restrictive or non-restrictive clause–so long as you can do it expertly. Until that expertise emerges in your prose, however, you’ll do fine—better than most other writers in the professional world—if you keep in mind the twin pillars of good professional prose: clarity and ease for your reader.
Bottom line for this lesson: Don’t make the reader juggle too many modifiers, waiting to see what and how they modify. In general,
- place them next to what they modify,
- make sure you’ve provided the word or phrase you mean them to modify, and
- don’t hesitate to use entire phrases, such as restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, as modifiers in your sentence architectures.*
*But don’t “stack” any sentence elements in a confusing manner. That goes for nouns/adjectives, prepositional phrases, restrictive modifiers, and non-restrictive modifiers. And anything else you can think of.
Practice, Lesson 8: Use the Right Modifiers
Enter your revision in the box below each exercise. Click the “>” below each box to see Dr. Hirst’s revision.
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Exercise 1: Effective Modifiers
Some of the sentences in this exercise are correct while some require modifications of some kind. Write a revision for the sentences that need to be edited and write “correct” for those that have effective modifiers.
1. I pointed out the I.D. plate to my supervisor mounted on the backside of the transformer.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
I pointed out to my supervisor the I.D. plate mounted on the backside of the transformer. [The supervisor was not mounted on the backside of the transformer.]
2. Flashing across the computer screen, we saw a startling message.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
We saw a startling message flash(ing) across the computer screen. [The message, not we, flashed across the screen.]
3. The program only reads PC files.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
Correct! If that’s all the program can do to the files; it can’t alter them. Otherwise: The program reads only PC files. [Those are the only kinds of files it can read.]
4. The DVDs displayed on the tables that are for sale seem to be selling well.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
Correct! If you mean the tables, not the DVDs, are on sale and selling well. Otherwise: The DVDs that are on sale and displayed on the tables seem to be selling well.
5. Researchers told reporters that they planned to close the lab after the mutated life forms escaped.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
After the mutated life forms escaped, researchers told reporters that they planned to close the lab. [They didn’t plan to let the mutated life forms escape and then to close the lab only when all the life forms were finished escaping.]
6. Swarming in dark clouds, farmers saw the locusts approaching their crops.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
The farmers saw locusts swarming in dark clouds approaching their crops. [The locusts, not farmers, were swarming in dark clouds.]
7. Hopefully, the zookeeper removed the bars between the male and female gorillas.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
Correct! If you mean that the zookeeper was full of hope as he removed the bars between the gorillas. Otherwise: I hope the zookeeper removed the bars between the male and female gorillas.
8. As a young man, his mother encouraged him to study science.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
When he was a young man, his mother encouraged him to study science. [His mother was never a young man.]
9. Leafing through the piles of test data, his eyes fell upon the very result he needed.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
As he leafed through the piles of test data, his eyes fell upon the very result he needed. [His hands did the leafing, not his eyes.]
Exercise 2: Restrictive and Non-restrictive Clause
Identify the following sentences as containing either a restrictive or a non-restrictive clause:
1. We will offer the discount that will satisfy the customer.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s answer.
Restrictive
2. We will offer the discount, which will satisfy the customer.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s answer.
Non-restrictive
3. The agent, who was confused about our offer to his company, called again.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s answer.
Non-restrictive
4. The agent who was confused about our offer to his company called again.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s answer.
Restrictive
5. The certificates, which are essential to our decision, are stuck in the client’s safe.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s answer.
Non-restrictive
6. The certificates essential to our decision are stuck in the client’s safe.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s answer.
Restrictive (remember, we can get away with omitting “that are” at the start of the clause, but that doesn’t change the clause’s meaning or function. It’s just a kind of shorthand).
Exercise 3: Re-Write Sentences
Now “toggle” the following sentences. If they contain restrictive clauses, change them to non-restrictive-and visa-versa.
1. This is the consultant, who wrote the security program. [Non-restrictive.]
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
This is the consultant who wrote the security program. [Restrictive.]
2. Our engineers are re-drawing the AutoCAD diagrams, which are too complicated for non-specialists to understand. [Non-restrictive.]
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
Our engineers are re-drawing the AutoCAD diagrams that are too complicated for non-specialists to understand. [Restrictive. Notice my change of “which” to “that.” Not absolutely necessary by today’s standards, but still a good change.]
3. Butterfly ballots that may yield ambiguous results should be re-counted. [Restrictive]
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
Butterfly ballots, which may yield ambiguous results, should be re-counted. [Non-restrictive. I now change “that” to “which” in toggling from restrictive to non-restrictive.]
Exercise 4: Reduce Clause Strings
Revise these sentences to avoid using strings of relative clauses. Remember, there is no single “right answer.”
1. Bluegill are the most abundant species that eat these insects that inhabit the waters that lie south of the steam plant.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
Bluegill are the most abundant species that eat these river insects in waters south of the steam plant.
2. He designed a motherboard that gave birth to multiple daughterboards, which increased the cost of a computer that was already too expensive.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
He designed a motherboard that gave birth to multiple daughterboards, making a too-expensive computer more expensive yet.
3. All conduit openings must have seals that exclude intrusion of any oil that may be forced into the tubes that feed fuel into the combustion chambers.
> Open to see Dr. Hirst’s sample response.
All conduit openings must have oil-tight seals to keep oil out of the tubes that feed fuel into the combustion chambers.
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