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English is mostly a Germanic language with some French thrown in owing to the Norman (French) Conquest of England, so it’s a great time to revive and revel in a German word not used that often but particularly a propos this year–schadenfreude. Roughly translated, schadenfreude means...

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His Far Left Dangling Modifier (and Person) Is Showing

Posted by Grammar Guy | Posted in Grammar Sucks | Posted on 11-15-2008

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I picked up a copy of the New York Times on Thursday, but only because there were photos of a California wine shop I frequent and a story, of sorts, about its owner.

Somehow, in the process I stumped upon a weird feature with weirder photos and still weirder writing in the same section.  A piece by someone named Mike Albo entitled "No Frown Is Left Unturned," unfortunately, sucked me in and gobbled up precious moments of my time better spent in things like, um, daydreaming, shouting at my dog or doing nothing.

Anyway, I was about five paragraphs into this guy’s piece when I realized a) he has no clue how to use modifiers and clauses correctly and b) he’s a far-left-leaning, America-hating Vladimir Ilyich Lenin striker (Navy term for apprentice). 

Check out this whopper of a misconstructed but totally revealing sentence of his:

It’s totally weird, but after a quick promenade through the store, some deeply repressed part of myself [sic-- me if he wants to use correct English] that has been buried for years under a morose cloud of apocalyptic doom was finally freed.

Ok, but who did the "quick promenade"?   There is no subject in the sentence who can take a promenade.  This ungrammatical part could’ve been cured by writing, "…after I made a quick promenade…."

I can cure the English grammar (though not the overwrough English), but no one can cure this person who hates the very country he lives in, and thus himself in the bargain.

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