Posted by STRONGBADIA_Population:_Tire at cache-rl04.proxy.aol.com on October 21, 2003 at 19:44:51:
In Reply to: since this is a board of grammar experts posted by grizzly on October 21, 2003 at 18:03:56:
?After buying a new pair of boots? implies something temporal. Although it can appear to be a gerund phrase it is not.
?They? in this sentence anaphoric. ?They? has to refer back to another noun. However, it matters not whether you wish to have ?they? modify ?boots? or ?pair.? Please do not place ?it? in that sentence.
Since ?After buying a new pair of boots? is a participial phrase, it has to modify whatever it was that supposedly purchased the boots. In this sentence it does not do that. I don?t care if it is ?John? or ?Babar? the elephant.
The sentence has a dangling modifier. And, if I must say your teacher is an elitist rooster-prick for putting that on a final. The way it is constructed makes it difficult to find the what is wrong in the sentence.
Maybe people here are Grammar Nazis, but they are not very adept ones.