A Little Fun

Loving English grammar the way I do, I am always taken back when I am reading and find some glaring grammar mistake. Sometimes I write them down, just for remembrances' sake. Here is one that is quite funny, to me. It involves a misplaced modifier.

"Dominque overheard the phrase and slased downward with his quirt, striking the man who had just come to his aid on the shoulder."

Now, in case you don't catch it, "on his shoulder" should come after "striking the man". Unless you really believe that he came to the man's aid standing/sitting/jumping on his shoulder. These are not uncommon in the newspaper, but in a published book? Where was the editor that day, that this error was allowed to get through? Oh, well, none of us are perfect.

I remember one day listening to the news on my way to my office at ORU. The newsman reported that a man had been killed on North Lewis Ave. during the night. Then he said, "He was shot in the fifty-eight hundred block." For the rest of my drive I was wondering if the man's body was divided evenly into numbered blocks, and exactly where was the 5800 block. Then I began to wonder if my body was blocked out, as well. I must say I feasted on that one for most of the day. Still strikes me as funny, but I don't know in which block it strikes me.