3
Condense the following into a single sentence, either simple or complex:
The iron and steel industry is very important, and it includes a great deal. First, the ore has to be mined, and then the work includes everything up to making the finest wire for musical instruments. Or, to put it another way, you can say from smelting the ore to building a battle ship. This is a very interesting occupation and, as said before, very important. There is hardly anything more interesting or important except agriculture.
Exercise 202—Dangling Expressions
Sometimes a sentence is not clear because it contains a participle which does not modify anything in the sentence. A participle is part verb and part adjective. As a verb, it expresses the idea of the verb from which it is derived. As an adjective, it must modify a noun or a pronoun. The important point is that this noun or pronoun must be expressed in the sentence and not lie in the mind of the writer, as it does in the following:
Riding from Saugatuck to Holland last year, the country showed unmistakable signs of lack of rain.
Here the writer means, We saw that the country, etc., but he says that the country rode from Saugatuck to Holland.
Again, an expression may be used which is really an incomplete clause. Do not use such a clause, unless the understood subject is the same as the subject expressed in the independent proposition.
Wrong: When almost exhausted, the camp was reached.
Right: When almost exhausted, we reached the camp.
Recast the following sentences, correcting the dangling expressions: