Clarity in Communication

Thirty years ago I wrote a letter to the local newspaper where I was living. The letter was in response to the children’s section of the newspaper wherein I castigated them for their choice of name for a rabbit.

“‘Spot’,” I told them, “Is a particularly ridiculous name for a rabbit.”

They replied, very courteously to me, to explain that the word ‘Spot’ was not the name of the rabbit but, rather, part of the name of the competition that they were running for youngsters.

Following this revelation I informed them that their heading was ambiguous and was in poor English. They really should pay closer attention to their word sequences and, specifically, dangling modifiers.

Astonishingly their next letter to me contained a query as to what a ‘dangling modifier’ might be! ‘Astonishingly’ because these were, one presumed, trained journalists who were all au fait with the English language and its nuances.

For those unfamiliar with this concept perhaps you will allow me to explain.

“I am going to see the old banana lady.”

You now have no idea what the root of that sentence is. Am I going to see an old lady who sells bananas or am I seeing a lady who sells old bananas?

You do not know.

This, then, is a dangling modifier. We have two nouns and an adjective with no clue as to which noun the adjective is describing.

In the case of the newspaper competition the heading gave no indication whether the word ‘Spot’ was a noun or a verb. Hence my confusion when I read ‘Spot the Rabbit’ as being a name rather than an enticement to play a game of finding the rabbit within the pages of this publication.

Writing also needs to be clear.

In this case the problem was created by my own ineptitude with hand-writing.

I told my Mother and Father that my friends had moved to a place called ‘Flint’ in North Wales.

With apologies to those who live there I have to say that this is a particularly unenticing place to live. It is grey and bleak.

A short while later I received a letter from my Mother telling me that they had been perusing the Gazetteer and were unable to locate anywhere in the United Kingdom called ‘Funt’!

It took me a while to realise that I had placed the ‘L’ and the ‘I’ too close together thus forming an entirely different word.

Following this revelation I sent Mum an advertisement for a nightclub in our local area called ‘Flickers’ and suggested that she makes no mistake with that one.

Yesterday I wrote a shopping list for son of mine to go and get a few things for his Mum. Fortunately he queried the ‘wafer biscuits’ before leaving. Beloved explained that my execrable writing hid the truth, which was ‘Water Biscuits’ to have with our lovely ‘Brie’ and ‘Camembert’ cheeses for afternoon tea.

Nobody’s perfect!!