Is Your Participle Dangling?

I have always loved words.  Even as a kid, writing, English, and grammar were my favorite subjects in school.  I loved learning about verbs, nouns, adjectives, sentence structure and phrasing.  Just give me a list of sentences to diagram and I’m a happy girl!  It’s fascinating to me how words can be put together in so many ways to evoke such strong emotions and attitudes.  A truly gifted writer can make you laugh, cry, question, or commiserate in just a couple paragraphs.  I don’t claim to possess that gift, but I do have a passion for sharing stories and ideas through carefully chosen words.  Sometimes, words and ideas will swim around in my brain for days, until I finally just have to sit down and spill them out.  Hence, this blog.

However, as much as I love words, I detest poor grammar!  I don’t got no use for it!  In fact, if I hear poor grammar, I usually can’t stop myself from correcting it in my head.  When I was young and dumb, I'd correct it aloud.  Not a good idea.  I found most people don’t appreciate my grammar assistance.  They’re happy to continue mixing their tenses, doubling-up their negatives and dangling their participles.    

I realize it’s pretty brave (or foolish) to admit I’m a grammar snob, given the fact that I write this blog for anyone to read.  It’s like asking you to review all my previous entries and dissect them for grammatical errors.  (The phrase “saying ‘sick’em’ to a dog” comes to mind!)  So, here’s my disclaimer:  I don’t necessarily blog in correct grammatical form.  My entries are quite often written in a  “conversational” style.  So, don’t waste your time – you’d be here awhile!