My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

Misplaced modifiers , dangling modifiers , dangling participles , misrelated
participles  –  these  are  all  expressions  that  grammarians  toss  into  the
conversation  on  purpose  to  confuse  and  embarrass  the  rest  of  us.  So  what  do
they mean? Well, consider a sentence such as:
Walking down the high street, the new shoe shop caught her eye.

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We probably all know what is meant , but grammatically what this sentence says
is that the shoe shop was walking down the street. The participle is dangling (or
misplaced  or  misrelated)  because  it  seems  to  relate  to  the  wrong  part  of  the
sentence. As  she  was  walking  down  the  high  street  ,  the  new  shoe  shop  caught
her eye is correct and unambiguous. As is Walking down the high street, she was
thrilled to notice the new shoe shop.
Rule 1: The (unexpressed) subject of the participle clause – that is, the person or
thing that is walking down the high street – should have the same subject as the
(expressed) subject of the main clause: she .
Rule 2: The modifying clause or phrase (walking down the high street ) should
always come as near as possible to the noun or pronoun it modifies.
Careless positioning of all sorts of modifiers can cause amusement, confusion or
actions for libel:
  John still attends his local church where he was married regularly.
  We will continue to sell goods to people in plastic wrapping.
  She was taken to hospital having been bitten by a spider in a bathing suit.
  American Catholic theologians will have to wait and see the exact wording of
a French document permitting the use of condoms before engaging in
theological debate.
  The mother of the accused said that God would judge her son in a news
conference on Friday.
  The bride was given away by her father wearing her mother’s wedding dress.
  Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people? A: All
my autopsies are performed on dead people.
‘I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll
never know.’