A participle is a verb that is used as an adjective. For example, "The crying baby was hungry." In this case the participle 'crying' is modifying 'baby'.
A dangling participle is one in which it is ambiguous what is being modified. For example: "Driving home last night, a biker almost smashed into me." In this sentence it is unclear who was driving home last night. Was it me or the biker? Dangling participles can be fixed by rearranging the sentence to make it clear what is being modified. For example: "As I was diving home last night, a biker almost smashed into me." Or, "A biker almost smashed into me as I was driving home last night."
Although they are often used in spoken English, dangling participles are not considered to be proper grammar and should be avoided when writing.
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