Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Because we tend to speak in sentence fragments, not grammatically complete sentences, and dangling participles are essentially a written form of the type of "shortcut" that people use in the spoken language. (Eg if someone asks you what you're doing, you might reply "reading a book", rather than "I'm reading a book".) It's perfectly understandable, even if grammatically wrong. The reason it's grammatically wrong, of course, is that the participle clause has no verb, but the verb is clearly implied - eg "Hiking the trail" is really "While I was hiking the trail". But it really shouldn't be used in written English.
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But even something that is technically correct can look a bit odd when written. I had someone have a character say "To whom?" not so long ago. I told him only 60-year-old English teachers would say something like that, and that he should change it to "Who to?"