Dangling Modifiers

Sucking with its powerful mouth,

• the vacuum cleaned dog hair and crumbs off the carpet.

• dog hair and crumbs disappeared from the carpet.

Working a minimum-wage job on the weekends,

• the expensive gifts that his girlfriend Gloria required could not be purchased with Caesar’s limited funds.

• Caesar discovered that he could not afford the expensive gifts that his girlfriend Gloria required.

We enjoyed

• the crisp and spicy fried shrimp served on paper plates.

• the fried shrimp served on paper plates which were spicy and crisp.

Grooving to the music pumping through his earbuds,

• Colby danced on the sidewalk, which amused the passengers waiting for the bus.

• Colby's dance moves amused the passengers waiting for the bus.

Squeezing from the bottom of the tube,

• toothpaste splattered the mirror.

• Kendra splattered the mirror with toothpaste.

Cursing her heavy book bag,

• Jillian's professors seldom made assignments in the thick textbooks.

• Jillian lugged thick textbooks that her professors seldom asked her to use.

• the textbooks that Jillian seldom needed made her shoulders ache.

Gobbling the slice of pizza,

• the complaints from Phillip's growling stomach finally stopped.

• Phillip's growling stomach ceased its complaints.

• Phillip quieted his growling stomach.

Inching toward the 12,

• Christopher watched the minute hand crawl through the last half hour of his work week.

• Christopher's work week would end once the minute hand reached the top of the clock.

• the minute hand crawled through the last half hour of Christopher's work week.

Snapping open,

• Angelina was so happy that she brought an umbrella.

• protection from the rain made Angelina so happy that she had brought an umbrella.

• the umbrella saved Angelina from a soaking in the rain.

To keep her hair straight,

• Diane applied abundant goopy product before she ventured into the summer humidity.

• abundant goopy product was applied before venturing into the summer humidity.

• the summer humidity was thwarted with abundant goopy product.