Here's a sentence from a recent issue of a national magazine: "After failing first grade, her mother took the girl to a specialist."

Taken literally, the sentence seems to say that the mother is still in the first grade, and still not doing all that great academically. Of course we know what it meant, so most of us just chuckle and read on..

And that's okay. For one thing, no great harm was done—at least in this case. For another, most of us occasionally misplace our own modifiers.

Garbling our words now and then is perfectly human,  so we should (and do) cut each other some slack—especially in first drafts or casual conversations. But in our own writing (as well as our editing and proofing), we need to watch out for such sentences, and fix them.

So the lesson here is to be forgiving of those who tangle their syntax, but to take care in keeping such tangles out of the sentences we are responsible for.

But just being careful isn't  enough. It's almost always better—maybe we should say essential—to have someone else, a competent reader, comb through our drafts before they go out. (Hmmm...Guess I'd better show this to Lane before posting it.)