Shanghai Tech Writer

Misplaced modifiers are words or phrases that are not located properly in relation to the words they are trying to modify.

For example:

I almost burned all the chocolate chip cookies.

I burned almost all the chocolate chip cookies.

The first sentence means I was very close to burning the cookies but I didn’t. The second sentence means I burned most of the cookies except for a few. As you can see, the placement of the modifier almost changes the entire meaning to the sentence. (Or is it, changes the meaning of the entire sentence? Hmm…)

A misplaced modifier can alter the meaning of what you are trying to communicate. One of the more commonly made errors in technical writing is the misplaced modifier. The last thing we want is to cause users to break their machine due to a misplaced modifier!

There is a whole section in the NI Style Guide about misplaced modifiers. One example is the placement of the word only. The following five sentences (taken from the style guide) have five different meanings. Can you guess what each sentence means?

1. Only LabVIEW received an award for its user interface last year.
2. abVIEW only received an award for its user interface last year.
3. abVIEW received only an award for its user interface last year.
4. abVIEW received an award for its only user interface last year.
5. LabVIEW received an award for its user interface only last year.

When I read this, I thought it was really funny. Whoever came up with this example must have thought hard about the meaning of each instance of the misplaced modifier. Most of us don’t really think about where we put the modifier only and assume people know what we’re trying to say. But I guess in technical writing, the last thing we want to do is assume (ASS + U + ME).

So here are the meaning of the five sentences:

1. No other software received an award last year.
2. LabVIEW did not give any awards; it only received one.
3. LabVIEW did not receive anything else for its interface last year.
4. LabVIEW has only one interface, which won an award last year.
5. LabVIEW received the award last year, not ten years ago.

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