Grammar Presentation

The Hook:

The following sentence made it through the grammar checker in Microsoft Word: Having designed software all my life, Microsoft Windows continues to trouble me. What is wrong with that sentence? The problem is not apparent enough to warrant attention from the built-in grammar checker in the word processing software. At first glance, the sentence seems to work: it contains two clauses, one dependent, introductory clause and another independent clause. Noun-verb agreement is fine, and the sentence is not a run-on. However, it contains one of the most common (and humorously named) grammatical errors: the dangling participle.

A participle is a single word or an entire phrase that acts as an adjective although it is derived from a verb. Thus, a participle "participates" as both a verb and an adjective. The above example contains a participial phrase: having designed software all my life. However, a participle can...
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