From a book I read lately (the man was grading some bumpy ground):
"After working all day, the ground was approaching level."
Both the sentence and the ground are bumpy here. By now you should know that this is a misplaced modifier. The ground was not working all day.
I'm still waiting to read a book that contains no misplaced modifiers. Seems like an impossible wish.
As my blog will surely reveal, I am as guilty of using misplaced modifiers just as much as anyone else. However, when I read the sentence you illustrated, I couldn't tell what the first part of the sentence had to do with the second part. IN this case, the misplaced modifier caused confusion to me.
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