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Of late the rare Wikipedia editor has been reverting corrections I have made of misplaced modifiers, without showing any understanding of what the error means and appealing to an authority called Fowler (absent from my bookshelf) who apparently condones it. This appeal strikes me as akin to expecting others to let their shirttail hang out over their trousers because some etiquette authority said it might be done. That permission doesn't oblige one to do it, if one sees a reason not to. Because sometimes, as in the example below, misplaced modifiers create confusion, and because they can always be gracefully averted, I find it sensible to do so.
What is the intended meaning of this sentence, taken from a manufacturer's manual:
Only install refrigerant lines outdoors in dry weather.
Any of five meanings could be drawn from it, depending on what the reader considers only to be modifying. If you can't see what these meanings are, the example will be lost on you.
You may say “It doesn’t matter! You could figure it out from the context!”
Sometimes you can...and if there is context. But why should anyone have to “figure out from the context” what a competent writer can easily express with unequivocal and graceful clarity, irrespective of context? Is the job of a writer and editor to make readers work harder than they would need to work if (s)he took the trouble to write clearly?
Please consider also that there may be readers whose first language is not English and whose understanding depends on literal translation. Literal translation of idioms, semantic or syntactic, doesn’t work well. If you don’t know any foreign languages and have never labored to translate idiomatic phrases like il n'a qu'une verbe, this proposition will be lost on you.
When we place a modifier directly before the term it's intended to modify and not before terms it isn't, the meaning is clear. In this case, the writer wished to say, and should have said, Install refrigerant lines outdoors only in dry weather.
A final note on edit wars: they take two to fight: an editor and a reverter. One who tucks in the shirttail and one who yanks it out again. Chenopodiaceous ( talk) 00:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
This information was removed from the main article: Grainger’s students included American composer and pianist Viola Van Katwijk. (source: Anderson, Ruth (1976). Contemporary American composers : a biographical dictionary. Boston: G.K. Hall. p. 449. ISBN 0-8161-1117-0. OCLC 2035024.).
T. E. Meeks ( talk) 23:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
Can anyone verify the claim that Grainger once "used nineteen pianos with thirty pianists" in a performance of "The Warriors"? The reference pdf (a Chandos notes booklet) seems only to be available on purchase. A 1982 recording/documentary (?) of Grainger's Biographer John Bird makes this claim not of Warriors, but of "Lord Peter's Stable Boy". It's unlikely that these exact numbers would have been assembled on two separate occasions, so unless this was in fact the same performance, something seems off. Noahfgodard ( talk) 23:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Many articles link the List of Works article in the infobox. See Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovitch, Stravinsky. Why should Grainger be different? I did revert a revertion, which is bad form, but the original revert says "Breach of MOS". Which MOS? How is it a breach? Are we to remove all those other lists? — Iadmc ♫ talk 02:54, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
![]() | Percy Grainger is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||
![]() | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on July 8, 2018. | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
![]() | A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the " On this day..." column on July 8, 2022. | ||||||||||||
Current status: Featured article |
![]() | This article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
|
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 92 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
Of late the rare Wikipedia editor has been reverting corrections I have made of misplaced modifiers, without showing any understanding of what the error means and appealing to an authority called Fowler (absent from my bookshelf) who apparently condones it. This appeal strikes me as akin to expecting others to let their shirttail hang out over their trousers because some etiquette authority said it might be done. That permission doesn't oblige one to do it, if one sees a reason not to. Because sometimes, as in the example below, misplaced modifiers create confusion, and because they can always be gracefully averted, I find it sensible to do so.
What is the intended meaning of this sentence, taken from a manufacturer's manual:
Only install refrigerant lines outdoors in dry weather.
Any of five meanings could be drawn from it, depending on what the reader considers only to be modifying. If you can't see what these meanings are, the example will be lost on you.
You may say “It doesn’t matter! You could figure it out from the context!”
Sometimes you can...and if there is context. But why should anyone have to “figure out from the context” what a competent writer can easily express with unequivocal and graceful clarity, irrespective of context? Is the job of a writer and editor to make readers work harder than they would need to work if (s)he took the trouble to write clearly?
Please consider also that there may be readers whose first language is not English and whose understanding depends on literal translation. Literal translation of idioms, semantic or syntactic, doesn’t work well. If you don’t know any foreign languages and have never labored to translate idiomatic phrases like il n'a qu'une verbe, this proposition will be lost on you.
When we place a modifier directly before the term it's intended to modify and not before terms it isn't, the meaning is clear. In this case, the writer wished to say, and should have said, Install refrigerant lines outdoors only in dry weather.
A final note on edit wars: they take two to fight: an editor and a reverter. One who tucks in the shirttail and one who yanks it out again. Chenopodiaceous ( talk) 00:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
This information was removed from the main article: Grainger’s students included American composer and pianist Viola Van Katwijk. (source: Anderson, Ruth (1976). Contemporary American composers : a biographical dictionary. Boston: G.K. Hall. p. 449. ISBN 0-8161-1117-0. OCLC 2035024.).
T. E. Meeks ( talk) 23:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
Can anyone verify the claim that Grainger once "used nineteen pianos with thirty pianists" in a performance of "The Warriors"? The reference pdf (a Chandos notes booklet) seems only to be available on purchase. A 1982 recording/documentary (?) of Grainger's Biographer John Bird makes this claim not of Warriors, but of "Lord Peter's Stable Boy". It's unlikely that these exact numbers would have been assembled on two separate occasions, so unless this was in fact the same performance, something seems off. Noahfgodard ( talk) 23:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Many articles link the List of Works article in the infobox. See Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovitch, Stravinsky. Why should Grainger be different? I did revert a revertion, which is bad form, but the original revert says "Breach of MOS". Which MOS? How is it a breach? Are we to remove all those other lists? — Iadmc ♫ talk 02:54, 12 June 2024 (UTC)