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Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Just don't dangle your participles.
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I had to look this one up.
That text gives some examples, such as:
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Hiking the trail, the birds chirped loudly.
Wishing I could sing, the high notes seemed to taunt me.
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Even if I didn't know that this kind of mistake was called a hanging particle (and I didn't, as I had to look it up), I'd still be able to immediately see that there's something wrong with those sentences.
Probably, the birds are not the ones hiking the trail, and the notes are not wishing that the singer could sing.
Maybe my natural feeling for language is just better than that of many people, or something, as I really cannot understand how a native English speaker (writer) could make such a mistake. To me, those sentences just "feel wrong" the moment I read them, without even having to dissect them.
There's a sentence in Dutch, that often appears in application letters, by the way: "Hierbij ingesloten zend ik u mijn CV." ("Enclosed within, I send you my resumé.") Grammatically, it actually means that you are the one that is enclosed (in the envelope), along with your resumé. What is meant is that the resumé is enclosed in the envelope, along with an application letter.
While it's wrong, this sentence is still widely taught in schools as a "polite ending" of the application letter.