It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences - June Casagrande 2010

Antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers: Prepositional phrases

Grammar isn't all suffering. A simple Google search for the term misplaced modifier can prove that.

Woman: They said it's going to rain on the radio. Man: Why would anyone leave a radio outside?

A classified ad offered "Mixing bowl set designed to please cook with round bottom for efficient beating."

I photographed an elephant in my pajamas.

A superb and inexpensive restaurant; fine food expertly served by waitresses in appetizing forms.

Have several very old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition.

Prepositional phrases, like relative clauses, are modifiers. But they're more fun because they're so devious. It's easy to lose track of what you're saying with a prepositional phrase. But if you understand them for what they are—modifiers—your sentences will benefit tremendously. Let's start with the supposedly real classified ad mentioned in our chapter title:

Antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.

The ad is funny because it sounds like with thick legs and large drawers is modifying lady. It's not. It's modifying desk. (At least, I hope it is.)

The ad is a noun phrase that contains numerous modifiers, one of which contains its own noun phrase. Let's look at all the pieces.

Antique is a straightforward adjective that comes before the noun. Easy. So let's set that aside.

Desk is a noun and the head of our noun phrase.

Suitable is an adjective. It comes after the noun, but that's okay. It's still an adjective and it's still modifying desk.

For lady is a prepositional phrase. The preposition is for and its object is the noun lady. Prepositional phrases can describe or define nouns—just as adjectives do. Or they can do the work of an adverbial, answering the questions when, where, to what degree, or in what manner or modifying verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or whole thoughts. In our advertisement, for lady is modifying the adjective suitable just as a more straightforward adverb might: extremely suitable, undeniably suitable.

Suitable for lady modifies desk. There's nothing else it could be referring to. That's not true of our next prepositional phrase, with thick legs and large drawers.

See, here's the thing about modifiers: people usually expect them to modify the closest possible word, not one that's farther away in the sentence. When you write, Derek had a pine armoire, a wooden bench, and a desk with thick legs and large drawers, nobody is going to wonder whether the armoire or the bench had thick legs and large drawers. They're going to assume that this modifier is deliberately and correctly affixed to the noun closest to it. That's the Reader's expectation, and as writers we must be careful to accommodate it.

Our classified ad defies Reader expectation. It sets the modifier with thick legs and large drawers right next to lady, creating a very different image indeed.

Misplaced or poorly placed prepositional phrases can crop up in a lot of different sentence structures. But if you think of prepositional phrases as modifiers and keep your focus on the things they modify, you'll do fine.

Often, the fixes are very simple:

Problem sentence: They said it's going to rain on the radio.

Solution: Move the prepositional phrase on the radio closer to the verb it modifies: said.

Improved sentence: They said on the radio that it's going to rain.

Problem sentence: I photographed an elephant in my pajamas.

Solution: Move the prepositional phrase in my pajamas closer to the pronoun it modifies: I.

Improved sentence: In my pajamas, I photographed an elephant.

Problem sentence: Fine food expertly served by waitresses in appetizing forms. (Note that this has two prepositional phrases, but the first one, by waitresses, clearly modifies served.)

Solution: Move the prepositional phrase in appetizing forms closer to the noun it modifies: food.

Improved sentence: Fine food in appetizing forms expertly served by waitresses.

Not all fixes are as easy.

In mixing bowl set designed to please cook with round bottom for efficient beating, we could just move our prepositional phrase to get mixing bowl set with round bottom for efficient beating designed to please cook. But now the modifier designed to please cook comes right after beating. Is that confusing? Perhaps not. But it's still a little weird. It's better to rewrite it. You could ditch the stuff about designed to please cook. That's already pretty clear. Or you could put it into another sentence: Mixing bowl set with round bottom for efficient beating. Cooks love it. Or perhaps Designed to please cook: Mixing bowl set with round bottom for efficient beating.

Prepositional phrases can also work mischief with lists. Readers know that sometimes one modifier can apply to everything in a list:

She sang "Fame," "The Promise," and "Lies" with great gusto.

Other times the modifier might refer to only the nearest noun: Kirk ate ravioli, pizza, and strawberries with whipped cream.

We'll examine this dynamic more in chapter 15. Here, the important thing is to remember that prepositional phrases work a lot like adjectives and adverbs and your Reader has some pretty strong ideas about where they should go.