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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Criminal Sentence 217: Obama Has Had a Term at Notre Dame?

From a newspaper:

"The president faces one of the noisiest controversies of his term at the University of Notre Dame."

This sentence suggests that Obama has had a term--in other words, served in some position of importance--at Notre Dame. Definitely not the case. The prepositional phrase "at the University of Notre Dame" is misplaced and accidentally joins up with what came before: "his term." So let's rearrange:

"While at the University of Notre Dame to give the commencement speech, the president faces one of the noisiest controversies of his term."

Be careful where you place your prepositional phrases; they get misplaced a lot!

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