Mastering Grammar: How Dangling Modifiers and Other Common Errors Affect Your Writing

Culture

Books

WordPlay

Opinion

What a dead man’s cousin and a talking horse have in common

David Astle Crossword compiler and ABC Radio Melbourne presenter September 6, 2025 — 5.30am

“A widower for six months, drinking has become his means of forgetting.” The sentence was plucked from a taster for ABC’s Bergerac reboot . Can you spot the bungle? Mary Dearing did. The word watcher added the booboo to her list of danglers.

Based on Jersey, Bergerac is the widower and drinker we’d met. Yet according to the flawed sentence, the widower is the pastime of drinking, not Bergerac. We call this a dangling modifier – or dangling participle – as the preliminary clause (“A widower for six months”) wrongly modifies boozing, not the cop. Better to say: “A widower for six months, Bergera