Participles are verb forms ending in -ing or -ed and used adjectivally are called participles. Writers need to use them with care, or there is a risk that unintended comedy may result as a result of what is often called a ‘hanging participle’ or ‘dangling participle’.
Consider the sentence: ‘Wearing that dress, I thought she looked very attractive.’ It’s pretty easy here to see what is meant: the dress is making its wearer look attractive. However, the grammar of the sentence suggests that I’m the one who’s wearing the dress.
The participle here is regarded as ‘dangling’ or ‘hanging’ because the reader expects the subject of the next clause to be the performer of the action in question, yet this doesn’t happen. The poor participle is bereft.
In a legal context, you might see a sentence such as: ‘Making it a criminal offence to offer bribes, companies will have to keep a close eye on their staff under the new law’. What this means is: ‘Making it a criminal offence for companies to offer bribes, the new law has ensured that they will have to keep a close eye on their staff’.
It’s a small point, in that it won’t generally result in your reader misunderstanding you. It may, however, occasionally result in an unintended amusing error – and that isn’t usually an effect lawyers are too keen to have.
