Friday, September 17, 2010

Sentence Edit of the Day

I hate sentences with modifier pileups. Here's one:

Here are the top five stories from the world of work you might have missed this week.

The problem here is that "[that] you might have missed this week" is misplaced. It seems to modify the word work, because of its position. It should modify the word stories.

These sentences make for confusion but are easy to fix. Here's one way:

You might have missed this week's top five stories from the world of work. Here they are:

I prefer a more direct, less accusatory sentence in this case. This was my suggested edit:

Make sure you didn't miss this week's top five stories from the world of work:

10/12 Update: The New York Times grammar blog "After Deadline" has more examples of modifier pileups.


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