<p>I was reading silverturtle's guide, but I feel I do not fully grasp the topic of Error in Placement of Adverbs. Could someone give me another example on this topic?</p>
<p>Generally, adverbs are to be safely placed next to what it modifies and away from other things that can possibly be modified. In the example that silverturtle gave in his guide, “he only ate one meal” implies that “only” modifies “ate” because it is next to it. This means that the action of eating was alone, and that the person did nothing else but eat. This is not the particular intention of the sentence. The intention is to say “he ate only one meal,” which is to say that “only” modifies “one” and that “one” is alone: There is no second meal or third meal. Since both sentences are legitimate but mean different things, where the adverb is placed is essential to it. If it is placed in a position that makes the sentence make no sense, then there is an error in the placement of an adverb.</p>
<p>Imagine what you would say if you wanted to express that you did nothing else but play video games one day. You would say, “I only played video games that day.” If you wanted to express that you played one video game and not two, three, or more, you would say, “I played only one video game.”</p>
<p>Now, if you place an adverb farther away from the antecedent, then it might be not incorrectly modifying something but ambiguously modifying something. “The reporter said that the man died on the news.” This sentence does not make clear what “on the news” modifies. Did the man die on the news or did the reporter report the story on the news that the man died? It makes relatively little sense to say that the man died on the news, so we would correct the sentence to “The reporter said on the news that the man died.” Now, if you really wanted to say that the man died on the news, the original sentence (“The reporter . . . the man died on the news”) could be correct in form because the phrase “on the news” is right next to the thing that it modifies. But if there is any room for confusion, then you would have to change the sentence to something like “The reporter talked about a man who died on the news.”</p>
<p>What do you mean by “generally”</p>
<p>Sometimes the adverb can appear away from what it modifies, like in the front (“Generally, . . .”) or at the end. You used an adverb in the standard position, right before and next to the verb:
Now if you placed it before “do” like this . . .
. . . the sentence would seem to indicate that you do not grasp the topic *at all<a href=“0%”>/i</a> rather than that you simply don’t fully grasp it (say, you grasp it 60%, but not 100%).</p>
<p>This was very helpful. Thanks a lot!</p>