Wrong word placement is one of the mistakes I find most often in my business of editing books. Authors, is this your manuscript’s hidden flaw? Take a look at these two sentences, and see if you can identify the problem:
The tree proved an irresistible temptation to the birds, hung with ripe cherries.
The delighted nursing home residents sang along with the carolers, many of them in wheelchairs.
The problem is that the writers put a phrase or phrases at the end of a sentence that actually belonged somewhere else in the sentence.
By placing “hung with cherries” after “birds,” the writer is saying the birds were hung with cherries, when he meant that the tree was hung with cherries:
Corrected version:
The tree, hung with ripe cherries, proved an irresistible temptation to the birds.
Or he could have written: Hung with ripe cherries, the tree proved an irresistible temptation to the birds.
Here is a third way the sentence could be corrected: The tree proved an irresistible temptation to the birds, who could not resist its ripe, hanging cherries.
In the second example, since “many of them in wheelchairs” comes right after “carolers,” the sentence literally says the carolers were in wheelchairs, when the writer intended to say many residents were in wheelchairs:
Corrected version:
The delighted nursing home residents, many of them in wheelchairs, sang along with the carolers.
The important thing is to position the modifying phrase beside the word it modifies, instead of beside some other word. In this case, the phrase modifies “residents,” so the correction places the phrase after that noun.
As you can see, wrong word placement can make for unintended humor. Such is the case with the following examples, which I extracted from online news articles, emails I’ve received, and first drafts of books I’ve edited:
I have been traveling and most recently attending the wedding of a friend’s son without the computer.
The sentence literally says the writer went to the wedding without taking his computer—not what the writer meant. “Without the computer” modifies “traveling,” so the phrase belongs after “traveling,” not after “son.”
Corrected version:
I have been traveling without the computer and most recently attended the wedding of a friend’s son.
Here is another real-life example of funny, wrong word placement, taken from a headline:
Man says $2 billion lottery winner stole his ticket in lawsuit.
That literally says, in the course of a lawsuit, a man stole someone else’s lottery ticket. What the writer meant to say is that a man stole a lottery ticket according to a claim made in a lawsuit. The wording should look like this:
Corrected version:
Man says in lawsuit that $2 billion lottery winner stole his ticket.
Here is another goodie:
The villain shot the fallen man who was trying to rise to his feet in the chest.
That says the man’s feet were in his chest.
Corrected version:
As the fallen man tried to rise to his feet, the villain shot him in the chest.
You may wonder why I didn’t write: The villain shot the fallen man in the chest as he tried to rise to his feet. While that rewording would eliminate the problematic word placement, it would create a new problem: namely, an ambiguous pronoun. We can’t tell if “he” refers to the fallen man or to the villain, and if the fallen man is trying to stand or if the villain is trying to stand.
Do you notice how in all these examples the error comes at the end of the sentence? A word-placement error can occur in other sentence locations, but the end seems to be its favorite spot, as it’s generally the result of a writer’s afterthought.
When wrong word placement creates unintended humor, it’s easier to detect than when it does not. This next sentence is tricky—not funny at all, but if you think about the meaning of what’s being said, you realize the wording is all wrong:
In 1780, the naval ship “The Boston” was captured by the British while defending Charleston, South Carolina.
The writer meant to say “The Boston” was defending Charleston when the British captured that American ship. In fact, though, he’s saying that the British were defending Charleston! The British did not defend Charleston or other American city in the War of Independence—Britain was America’s enemy! The word placement here isn’t funny, but it’s a serious writing error.
Corrected version:
In 1780, the naval ship “The Boston,” while defending Charleston, South Carolina, was captured by the British.
I’ll leave you with two more examples of wrong word placement from the first draft of a novel by one of my clients, who gave me his permission to use them so long as I don’t share his name. See if you can detect the mistakes and if you can revise the wording in a way that corrects them. Underneath, I give my own revised versions, but don’t read those until you’ve taken a crack at detecting and correcting these two errors by yourself:
“I can’t stop shaking,” Agnes said, looking at her trembling hands sitting next to Adam in the wagon.
The man hefted the rifle aloft in both hands screaming.
Jessi’s edited versions:
Sitting next to Adam in the wagon, Agnes looked at her trembling hands. “I can’t stop shaking,” she said.
Screaming, the man hefted the rifle aloft in both hands.
So, do you get the idea? I hope you enjoyed the chuckles. Reading all these examples has helped sensitize you to the common error of wrong word placement. That will make the error easier to detect and correct in your own writing.
Jessi Rita Hoffman … book editing by an industry professional