Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips

Tip #457: "Squinting Modifiers" ...

These FREE weekly business writing tips
will help you improve your business writing.

Tip # 457: Besides misplaced modifiers there are "squinting modifiers" - modifiers placed in such a way they can be interpreted as modifying either what precedes or what follows.

For example:

Squinting: Traveling abroad frequently can become exhausting.

(Does "frequently" modify "traveling abroad" or "can become exhausting"?

Change to: Frequently traveling abroad can become exhausting.

Or change to: Traveling abroad can frequently become exhausting.

Weekly Exercise:

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This week’s quiz:

Change these misplaced modifiers:

  1. Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.

  2. I suspect my assistant accidentally dropped the speech I had been drafting in the wastebasket.
Comments:

Don Lileneld commented:

"Thanks, ...  (referring to tip #456), the difference between Mission, Vision and Values are the clearest I have ever seen.

Quote of the week:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

(James Madison, 19th century American president)

Answers to this week's exercise:

  1. Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope while traveling to Gettysburg.

  2. The speech I had been drafting has disappeared. I suspect my assistance accidentally dropped it in the wastebasket.

To send the above exercise answers to Gloria for her comments and review,  copy the questions,  paste  them into an email, answer them,  and send to Marsha@basic-learning.com.

 

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10 Easy Guides for Getting to Your Writing Target
By Gloria Pincu, M.A. , President of Basic Learning Systems, Inc.
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Here are some books on business writing that I recommend.

Bull's Eye Business Writing is also available from Amazon.com.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, author, Lynne Truss The Everything Resume Book by Steven Graber
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction , by William Knowlton Zinsser  The Gregg Reference Manual, by William A. Sabin 
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, White, E. B. White  How to Take the Fog Out of Business Writing, by Robert Gunning, Richard A. Kallan (Contributor) 

More books on business writing and other business subjects  (available from Amazon.com). 

Contact Gloria Pincu at Basic Learning Systems, Inc.

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