Having been spotted far too often, the Grammar Police bring you a melange of misplaced modifiers!*

Now the CIA is attacking pipelines?

We always give some slack to writers whose first language is not English, as seems to be the case with the news webpage that posted this. Still, this classic misplaced modifier is pretty funny. A Russian vessel was fired from a flatbed truck?

Of course, it isn’t Russia that’s been encircled. It’s just the soldiers in that one city.

"We can call you back rather than waiting on hold.”
You probably have heard this during an interminable telephone ordeal with an airline or the cable company. You know what these guys mean. But of course, the wording suggests they are the ones waiting on hold. We wish. Should be, “If you don’t want to wait on hold, we can call you back..”

The sheriff was kicked out of the fair? And then killed a teen?

This paragraph was a “gold” mine of bad writing.
First, a misplaced modifier — our theme for this week — said the first Middle Eastern country to host the tournament was the World Cup. The World Cup’s not a country. Then it said this was the first time the tournament had been moved from summer to stave off heat, suggesting it was moved in the past for other reasons. (NOTE: IT was held in June 2010 in South Africa, but of course that part of the world was in early winter.) Also, you don’t need “normal summer schedule.” The writer then made the nation of France plural. And the whole paragraph is wordy. Here. Let’s fix this.
“Qatar will be the first Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup. The tournament will, for the first time, move from the Northern Hemisphere’s summer to winter. The reason: to stave off Qatar’s brutal heat. For 29 days, 32 countries will battle for the 18-karat gold trophy, now held by France, which won in 2018.”
We just cleaned up all the bad writing and tightened the paragraph from 73 words to 54. We cut it by a a fourth.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 32: Foreign words and phrases. Caution! ¡Cuidado! Mise en garde! Vorsicht! https://youtu.be/fGW0hrWTatM

Eagle eye: This segment has one misplaced modifier you might have missed. Did you spot it? See bottom.

Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
Loyal reader David Barak asked about our our Nov, 27, 2022, Grammar Police segment busting a bad TV headline: “Millions of Americans to start shopping this holiday weekend.” We said that sounded like they’d never shopped before, and fixed it to: “Millions of Americans plan to start holiday shopping this weekend.” Dave wrote, “Couldn't that also be interpreted as millions of Americans who have never shopped for the holidays will start doing so for the first time this weekend? My suggestion for clarity would be something like ‘Millions of Americans plan to start shopping for the 2022 holiday season this weekend’ or ‘Millions of Americans plan to start shopping this weekend for the 2022 holiday season.’" The Rules Committee CONCURS.

“Eagle eye” answer: The headline! It suggests the Grammar Police, not the misplaced modifier, were spotted far too often.

Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong" features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police.” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, menus, TV news graphics, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we properly can credit you. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com

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NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!