Splitting Infinitives While Dangling Participles

by Judith Gayle Smith-Owens Vitouswykegardinerclark
07/26/13
Free to Share
Author requests article critique

  Message Writer
  Hire Writer

Tweet

"Have a seat and sit down”, my frail child-like older sister giggles merrily.  She modifies this with the fact she has her very own attached seat (posterior)  which she can plunk into a comfy chair, which she very promptly accomplished quickly.

Rereading this first paragraph shows me that I do indeed know the rudiments of splitting infinitives and dangling participles.

I just don’t use them correctly. I split and dangle shamelessly and haphazardly, as this essay should extremely well prove, yes?

I love words immensely and it is fun to find obsolete, obtuse and obnoxious ways to delightfully use them.

Hoping not to completely confuse with these well composed examples, I offer the following:

Split infinitive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A split infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or adverbial phrase, comes between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of a verb.

For example, a split infinitive occurs in the opening sequence of the Star Trek television series: to boldly go where no man has gone before. Here, the adverb "boldly" splits the full infinitive "to go". More rarely, the term compound split infinitive is used to describe situations in which the infinitive is split by more than one word: The population is expected to more than double in the next ten years.

Dangling modifier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A typical example of a dangling modifier is illustrated in Turning the corner, a handsome school building appeared.^[2] The modifying clause Turning the corner is clearly supposed to describe the behaviour of the narrator (or other observer), but grammatically it appears to apply to nothing in particular, or to the school building. Similarly, in At the age of eight, my family the dog, rather than the intended meaning of giving the narrator's age at the time), finally bought a dog,^[3] the modifier At the age of eight "dangles," not attaching to the subject of the main clause (and conceivably implying that the family was eight years old when it bought the dog.

Enduring the enormously uneventful Jurassic period of  “the best years of my life”, I dangled and was split between being an English teacher or musical comedy star like Judy Garland, for whom I was named – and, as so very tragically, she didn’t set the best example for a happy life, Hollywood was out of the question.

Totally following necessity, practicality and my parents’ bankruptcy, I graduated high school on my 18th birthday with a “grad night” party at Disneyland. and started keypunching on an IBM 024 card machine shortly afterward

I adopted the nickname “Punchin’ Judi”. I had a complete roomful of captive audience gals miserably bored to tears by their tedious carpal-tunneling keypunches. With this type of tedium, eyes were also weakened, and I developed Fibromyalgia. A malady then unknown, but I felt like a wicked wee mule was repeatedly, maliciously kicking the back of my head.

Chatting wittily, doing sit-down comedy, I faced the documents to be processed with the raised eyebrow, the frosty demeanor and the veritable red pencil of an English torment, uh, teacher.

Learned a horrible dictum: “Key what you see, and don’t ask questions!” – sigh. Years of frustration followed.

Example:  this did not apply to paying medical insurance claims.  I made this chilling discovery after not so carefully processing my first seventy claims with as many errors.  A horrifically fitting example of the confusion chain’s rattling me was my nervous breakdown suffered immediately afterwards.

Obviously I have difficulty setting examples. When my hubby asked me how he could split infinitives, my wax-saturated ears heard “split infinity”, and I was chainsaw chasing unsuspecting automobiles.

When patiently corrected, I most humbly resorted to finding knowledge beyond myself, having short-termed my memory as to what these almost forgotten “rules that must be obeyed” applied to.

Thump.  Pardon me  – I feel the more than gracious Holy Spirit not so gently prodding my cocky conscience . . .

As a born-from-above woman, a preacher’s wife, I am called to be a Godly woman, an example of all things Christ-like.

And so I will conclude this otherwise exemplary writing example with remarkable dignity, anticipating many pursed lips, raised eyebrows and scowls because I won’t proofread it.

My erstwhile comedic talent fades in comparison to the holiness of God’s Word, and what He wants me to be in Him;  Hebrews 12:14.  I Peter 5:8 and the Proverbs 31 wife.