Placement of modifiers (10)

Careless placement of modifiers is a frequent cause of unclear writing. Place your modifiers as close as possible to what they modify. Don’t make your readers rely on an interpretation of the context or on guesswork.

Here’s an example of the careless placement of a modifier.

Example

A bill (H4509) introduced in the South Carolina General Assembly on February 2 contains this language:

“Federal agents have flouted the United States Constitution and foresworn their oath to support this Constitution by requiring registration of the purchasers of firearms and ammunition, and these requirements violate the limits of authority placed upon the federal agents by the United States Constitution and are dangerous to the liberties of the people…”

The adverbial phrase “by requiring registration of the purchasers of firearms and ammunition” appears only three words after the verb “to support” and therefore could easily be interpreted as modifying “to support.”

However, the context suggests that the bill-writers intended the adverbial phrase to modify the verbs “have flouted” and “[have] foresworn,” which are farther back in the sentence.

If they did intend to modify “have flouted” and “[have] foresworn,” they should have placed the adverbial phrase closer to those verbs than to the verb “to support.” For example, they should have written something like this:

By requiring registration of the purchasers of firearms and ammunition, federal agents have flouted the United States Constitution and foresworn their oath to support this Constitution. These requirements violate the limits of authority placed upon the federal agents by the United States Constitution and are dangerous to the liberties of the people…

The Takeaway: Place every modifier so that the reader can easily identify what you intend to modify and what you do not intend to modify. Don’t make your readers work harder to read the sentence than you worked to write it.