Keep Your Modifiers Safe

Dangling modifier on CNN headline

“While walking along the beach, my nose got sunburned.”

What’s wrong with that sentence? The same grammar error’s on CNN today – snipped it as a picture.

Hint – what’s the subject of each sentence?

Sentence 1: my nose
Sentence 2: Dr. Sanjay Gupta

What’s the verb – and its prepositional phrase? A preposition is anything a cybercriminal/threat actor can do to a network. (Updated from my previous description of anything a plane can do in a cloud).

Sentence 1: Walking (along the beach)
Sentence 2: Swimming (from Cuba)

Is my nose walking or Dr. Gupta the swimmer?

Nope.

What we have here is attribution of the verb’s action to something other than the intended subject.

If you’re visualizing a giant, walking red nose and some sand, good.

Now you can avoid this grammar peril known as a misplaced modifier or dangling modifier.

You certainly don’t want them creeping into cybersecurity communication and introducing confusion.

With unclear communication, nobody nose what you intend.

Enjoy the mental beach commonality of the two sentence. And remember – beach is one letter off from breach.

#cybersecurityawareness#grammartips

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