Ok, for my first question Flying over the oak tree,the farmer saw the flock of birds that had damaged his crops. I revised to: The farmer saw the flock of birds, flying over the oak tree that had damaged his crops. Second sentence: Ironing out all wrinkles, the pants looked much more presentable. I revisded to: The pants looked much more presentable, ironing out all wrinkles. This was for dangling modifiers Thanks, I am lost on this.
Flying over the oak tree,the farmer saw the flock of birds that had damaged his crops. I revised to: The farmer saw the flock of birds, flying over the oak tree that had damaged his crops.
Your revision now sounds as if the oak tree had damaged his crops! See what you think of this:
The farmer saw the flock of birds that had damaged his crops as they were flying over the oak tree.
Second sentence: Ironing out all wrinkles, the pants looked much more presentable. I revisded to: The pants looked much more presentable, ironing out all wrinkles.
Your revision has the pants ironing out all the wrinkles! Try this: The pants looked much more presentable after he ironed out all the wrinkles.
Or this: The pants looked much more presentable after all the wrinkles had been ironed out.
This was for dangling modifiers Thanks, I am lost on this.
Fixing dangling and squinting and all the other weirdly phrased modifiers is not always easy. Did you go to that webpage I sent you. It does a pretty good job explaining it all, but it still takes lots of reading and practice writing to deal with these things.
One thing to remember is that you want the modifier(s) -- whether a word or two or a phrase or a clause -- to be as close to what it/they are modifying as possible.
Please re-post if you have more questions. This is not an easy topic, I know.
=)
It seems like you had some confusion with the concept of dangling modifiers. Dangling modifiers occur when a modifier is not positioned correctly in a sentence, resulting in the modification being unclear or illogical. Let me explain how to correct them using your examples.
In the sentence "Flying over the oak tree, the farmer saw the flock of birds that had damaged his crops," the modifier "flying over the oak tree" is dangling because it is not placed near the word or phrase it is supposed to modify. The revised version you suggested, "The farmer saw the flock of birds, flying over the oak tree that had damaged his crops," still contains the dangling modifier. It now gives the impression that the oak tree was damaging the crops.
A better revision could be: "As the farmer flew over the oak tree, he saw the flock of birds that had damaged his crops." This version ensures that the modifier "flying over the oak tree" is placed closer to the subject it is describing, which is the farmer.
Similarly, in the sentence "Ironing out all wrinkles, the pants looked much more presentable," the modifier "ironing out all wrinkles" is dangling because it is not placed near the noun it is intended to modify. Your revised version "The pants looked much more presentable, ironing out all wrinkles" also contains a dangling modifier, suggesting that the pants are responsible for ironing out wrinkles.
A better revision for this sentence could be: "After ironing out all the wrinkles, the pants looked much more presentable." Here, the modifier "ironing out all the wrinkles" is correctly placed before the subject it is modifying, which is the pants.
Understanding how to properly place modifiers requires practice and careful attention to ensure clarity and logical meaning in your sentences. It may be helpful for you to study more examples and review grammar rules related to modifiers. If you have any further questions or need assistance with other language topics, feel free to ask.