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(If you like the question, please upvote)

I am trying to make sense of the following sentences, which seem nonsensical to me from the grammatical perspective. The first one is from YouTube, the other is from a BBC article. These are just two examples, and I regularly encounter similar sentences coming from native English speakers.

As a young girl, her father was absent for most of her life.

This sentence does not make sense, because "her father" has never been a young girl. Clearly, "as a young girl" was intended to refer to the daughter, who is not even mentioned in this sentence. Yet I feel that the "as a [noun]" clause should always refer grammatically to the subject of the main clause (if precedes) or another noun (if follows and no ambiguity).

Unlike most millennials, her biggest milestones took place on the world’s stage.

This does not make sense because "millennials" are people and "milestones" are events. One should completely lose one's mind to compare a physical object to an abstract concept: millennials cannot "take place" and figurative "milestones" cannot be born or touched. I understand that "unlike most millennials" was probably referring to the same woman as the pronoun "her", as in "she was unlike most millennials". But the grammatical structure seems to lack any logic and be misused, which is why I can't help but compare a supposedly literate BBC journalist to a babbling child whose utterances require thoughtful interpretation.

My questions are:

  1. Am I right to regard these examples as grammatically incorrect?
  2. Are these examples considered to be proper English speech or something that can be perceived as a deficiency in education or cognitive ability?
  3. Is there a term for this kind of patterns?

I found a Wikipedia article on Dangling modifier, which seems to be the answer to the last question. However, I wanted to confirm and just wonder if there is anything else to it.

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    Please don’t add requests to upvote the question; they do not belong here, which is why Mari-Lou edited it out to begin with. If people think it’s a good question, they will upvote it (I just did, since I think it is). // As an aside, the first example makes no sense at all to me, even if the dangling modifier is fixed. “When she was young, her father was absent for most of her life” is nonsense: ‘most of her life’ cannot be evaluated ‘when she was young’. Either her father was absent when she was young, or he was absent for most of her life, but not both.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 3 at 12:54
  • @JanusBahsJacquet Thanks for your comment and the upvote. " If people think it’s a good question, they will upvote it" - I have to disagree here. You sometimes get little pop-up reminders to upvote the question from the site itself (after you upvote an answer), so I regard this as an acknowledgement of an undesirable tendency among us, users. // Afaic, the father was mostly absent both during her childhood and for most of her life: the female was about 20 at the time of the video. But I think I get your point that "when she was young" is some sort of a qualifier for "most of her life".
    – paperskilltrees
    Commented Jul 3 at 13:30
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    To be clear, I didn’t mean that the father couldn’t be absent both when she was young and for most of her life – he could, of course. It’s just that if the sentence is framed around “when she was young”, then it can’t speak to most of her life, only to that part of her life, her youth. It would be equally meaningless the other way around: “For most of her life, her father was absent when she was young” would mean that most of her life had a period when she was young.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 3 at 13:53
  • The concept of voting works the same for every question, so no need to ask for it. Also, it's not a popularity contest ;)
    – paddotk
    Commented Jul 4 at 8:32
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    I have downvoted because the blatant disrespect for site norms makes this a bad question, regardless of its content.
    – fectin
    Commented Jul 4 at 13:53

4 Answers 4

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Am I right to regard these examples as grammatically incorrect? Are these examples considered to be proper English speech or something that can be perceived as a deficiency in education or cognitive ability?

In high school, I was trained to spot these as mistakes in a grammar test. That training has stuck with me, to the point that examples like these stick out to me. But there's a big difference between "flagged for an exam" and "outside of reasonable, common, standard usage." This kind of usage is quite common, and the examples given leave no room for misinterpretation (no one supposes that "her father" is a "young girl"). So, it might be excessively descriptivist and prudish to call them "incorrect."

I would still avoid them in my own writing, and would be especially careful of any case in which there could be real confusion, like "A model for generations to come, Smith's essays reflect his historical prominence." (What's the "model," Smith or his essays?)

Besides "dangling modifier," I learned about them under the term "misplaced modifier."

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As a native American English speaker, I believe that both sentences are acceptable. The former is more informal than the latter, and leans more heavily on the context around it, but its meaning is perfectly clear.

As a young girl, her father was absent for most of her life.

This sentence does not make sense, because "her father" has never been a young girl.

This sentence is almost certainly placed within the context of a larger work which focuses on "her", and is very likely within (or starting) a paragraph about her early years. I might suggest adjusting it a bit (I'd offer "As a young girl, her father was mostly absent." or "Her father was mostly absent when she was young."). FWIW, I would also be interested in hearing the context around that sentence; even with captions, it's possible that OP broke up two or three sentences differently than the script did (eg., "As a young girl, her father was mostly absent. For most of her life, she...").

Unlike most millennials, her biggest milestones took place on the world’s stage.

This does not make sense because "millennials" are people and "milestones" are events. One should completely lose one's mind to compare a physical object to an abstract concept: millennials cannot "take place" and figurative "milestones" cannot be born or touched.

This sentence is perfectly fine to my ear. There is no indication that millennials are "taking place" nor that figurative milestones are being "born or touched". Rather, the sentence is clearly indicating that her milestones were public ("took place on the world's stage") where most millenials' milestones took place in private.

That is: the sentence is contrasting "her" and "most millenials"; it is drawing attention to the fact that "her" life was different from the lives of most of her generation, and that one of the key differences is that her milestones were public rather than private.

This is doubly true when looking at the full context of the sentence:

Olympic downhill skier Lindsey Vonn turns 40 this year, and like many millennials, she marks moments in her life by the technology proliferating at the time. Unlike most millennials, her biggest milestones took place on the world’s stage.

-- BBC

The first sentence sets up a parallel between Ms. Vonn and "many millenials", then flips the similarity she has with her generation into a difference between her life and theirs.

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  • "As a native American English speaker, I believe that both sentences are acceptable" Thanks for the data point, I believe one other answer is also written by a native (small n) American English speaker.
    – paperskilltrees
    Commented Jul 2 at 15:56
  • "There is no indication that millennials are "taking place" ..." - I disagree; the indication is in the structure of the sentence. Let's revisit the first example and change it slightly: "As a young girl, her mother liked ice cream". Now let me ask you: who liked ice cream? Although both females can plausibly like ice cream, I claim you'd answer "mother", as would most people, because the modifier clause naturally refers to the subject.
    – paperskilltrees
    Commented Jul 2 at 15:56
  • Yes, the "ice cream" example is ambiguous and it should be reworded. I think that the "absent father" example is fine, but agree that (especially in a vacuum) there's room for improvement. The "millennial" example, though, is good as-is: it is clearly setting Vonn apart from "most millennials", and it's following a parallel structure to the previous sentence ("like many millennials, she marks .... Unlike most millennials, her biggest milestones...").
    – minnmass
    Commented Jul 2 at 16:18
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    The meaning is clear in the second example, but the structure is jarring. In a construction like unlike X, Y [verb], the expectation is that X and Y will be comparable entities, which they are not here: X is people, Y is milestones. A more jarring example: “Unlike most millennials, my bike is not red” – I find it very hard not to read that as stating that most millennials are red. “Unlike those of most millennials, her milestones took place…” would be parallel and work.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 3 at 12:51
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No, they are not grammatically incorrect.

Many people do not consider them "proper English speech": "proper" is a word that describes etiquette (or fashion) and has nothing to do with grammar.

They represent a deficiency in education only if you believe that education is a matter of teaching people that they are not competent to speak their own language and should be saying something else. They certainly don't represent any kind of cognitive deficiency.

In some cases, such expressions are ambiguous; but most of the time, it is perfectly clear what is meant, and to claim something is wrong with them is like complaining about the way somebody chooses to dress.

(Note: not everybody will agree with my position on these questions. I believe that language belongs to its speakers, not to some self-appointed pundits).

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  • "...and has nothing to do with grammar". It appears that some native speakers (including you) deny that the formal structure of the sentences in question automatically imposes a certain meaning, while other native speakers confirm that. As if there are two kinds of people in the population: those who recognise and follow this logical pattern and those who do not think it applies. Like the dress. Genetics? :) In any case, I am glad to learn that me noticing such dangling modifiers in English is not simply an artifact of my own native language.
    – paperskilltrees
    Commented Jul 3 at 14:17
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    You are confusing grammar with common usage and interpretation, a difference which Andy Bonner correctly points out. Grammatically, these sentences are not right.
    – paddotk
    Commented Jul 4 at 8:38
  • This was the prevailing ideology when i was taught english in school in the 70s and 80s in the UK it has now changed that english learning has to be measurable, the ideas don't matter can I mark you wrong because your comma is in the wrong place.
    – WendyG
    Commented Jul 4 at 13:01
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    You 'abominate' following the rules of a language? Or perhaps you mean you don't like it if people are 'grammar nazis'? Every language has rules for clear and consistent use of language. The fact that people oftenly use incorrect grammar and that's generally (subjectively) ok, doesn't mean it's not incorrect grammar. The OP asks whether the grammar is correct or not and the answer is no.
    – paddotk
    Commented Jul 4 at 14:20
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    @paddotk There is nothing grammatically wrong with the sentences; you are misusing the term ‘grammar’, which essentially refers to syntax and morphology. There is nothing in these sentences that break English syntax or English morphology – the break occurs at a purely semantic level due to logical, not grammatical, imbalances. They may be inelegant, but both sentences are perfectly understandable, and any error they exhibit is one of style, not grammar.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jul 4 at 14:51
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Yes, the OP’s examples demonstrate the improper placement or use of modifiers. These modifiers are known as dangling modifiers. Such sentences are considered bad style especially if they appear in writing. I believe such situations are more prevalent in conversations than writing as people sometimes don’t plan that carefully before they speak. Also, properly structured sentences are sometimes longer.

Possible ways to express the two examples are

As a young girl, she had the misfortune of having her father absent for most of her life.

Unlike most millennials, she had her biggest milestones taking place on the world’s stage.

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  • Or simply 'when she was young, her father had been absent for most of her life'
    – paddotk
    Commented Jul 4 at 8:39
  • Thanks, @paddotk. That’s possible. It’s just that the example sentence starts with As a young girl, and hence I tried not to disturb that format.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Jul 4 at 9:28
  • As a native Brit speaker the first sentence may be technically correct, but it is horrible and clunky, there is no flow no rhythm
    – WendyG
    Commented Jul 4 at 13:03
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    Thanks, @WendyG. I agree. With the constraint of As a young girl, it’s harder to form a good sentence compared with starting a brand new one. If there’re no constraints (for example, those imposed in a test) we should restructure the sentence.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Jul 4 at 15:42
  • Sometimes when I answer a question, I have to decide whether to maintain the OP’s sentence structure and just tweak from there to show some possible alternatives; or to revamp the sentence. In this case, I decided to retain the starting because that’s the sample the OP has used to raise the question on dangling modifiers.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Jul 4 at 15:42

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