<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I have been having problems with misplaced modifiers? Can anyone give me a quick lesson on them?
For example, The bakery owner gleefuily presented "his chief baker's" "most recent creation", a birthday cake "that plays" Happy Birthday when "opening the box"
I don't understand why "opening the box" is wrong.</p>
<p>Is the Birthday Cake opening the box? The modifier modifies the wrong thing here.</p>
<p>Alright that example is pretty complicated, so I’ll give you a simpler one. Then, maybe you can apply what you have learned and find the problem easily.</p>
<p>I ate a peanut flying on an airplane.</p>
<p>In that sentence, the peanut that I ate was most certainly not flying on the airplane haha. I wanted to say that I was eating the peanut while I was on the airplane. The correction would be:</p>
<p>I ate a peanut while flying on an airplane.</p>
<p>Does it make more sense now? I think that is a pretty good example of a misplaced modifier, and it is easy to understand too I would say.</p>
<p>The reason the sentence you stated was wrong was wrong because it sounds like something other than a person is opening the box. I’m not too clear on the subject it is mistakenly refering to, but I can definitely tell you it is wrong because it isn’t refering to a person opening the box. The correct version might read:</p>
<p>…a birthday cake that plays Happy Birthday when a person opens the box.</p>