thedanglingmodifier.co.uk

Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t written about the conspiracy recently – that is the one to make a mockery of editors everywhere, to turn language into meaningless noise, to pollute our every moment with confusing messages and meaningless drivel, to litter our lives with the pointless delusion that we exist for a purpose, when in fact we are all drones serving the smug and swanky who think they’ve got the better of us in some way or other.

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No matter how much I bang on about plain English and stuff, well… it’s as if people don’t understand the words. This week my life has been plagued with people who think that writing web content clearly, and following accessibility criteria, will make their god-awful content boring. It’s enough to drive any right-thinking web editor completely insane. › Continue reading

Sometimes I think isolation is a good thing and only adds to the quality of an editorial life. At other times – surrounded by words and expressions I don’t understand and yearning for a sentence in concise, plain English – I feel lonely. So imagine my delight this week when someone dangled some bad writing at the Dangling Modifier.
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After my trip out last week, I felt that nothing and no one could harm me. My gamble on the hokey pokey ice-cream paid off and taught me a valuable lesson: all this time I’ve been worrying about understanding the words, and the truth is, I probably don’t need to. › Continue reading

I have been getting increasingly depressed about not understanding the words. What with that, and having to work through all that stuff about sewage, last week my life as an editor seemed to be at an all-time low. Then, rushing to meet my Friday deadline, I ran into a nightmare 57-word sentence. › Continue reading