From Guy Keleny’s Errors & Omissions column in today’s Independent:
This, from a news report the same day, is in my view much more serious: “Running to an excessive 140 minutes, fans won’t be insulted, but neither will they be entranced by a film that loses sight of its aims.” Yes, it’s the hanging participle, a bugbear familiar to readers of this column. The participle “running” is liable to attach itself to the nearest available noun or pronoun: in this case “fans”. So the fans are running? No, of course not, but the words say they are.I suppose some people don’t even notice the discrepancy. “What does it matter?” they mumble in their oafish way. “We can see what the writer means.”To those who value language for the beauty of its form, not just for the information it conveys, the irritation resides in that very point – that we can see what the writer means. “If that is what he means,” we demand through gritted teeth, “why has he said something completely different?”
Which is why it is the best thing in the Saturday newspapers.
Independent Minds 