Readers of the Sunday New York Times Op-Ed page might have wondered yesterday what had happened to copy editors.
Thomas L. Friedman began his column on the rise of popularism with this: "Traveling in Europe last week, it seemed as if every other conversation ended with some form of this question: ..."
While halfway through Nicholas D. Kristof's column on Iran readers found this: "While interviewing people on a lovely Caspian Sea beach, a plainclothes policeman bustled forward."
Kristof's grammar lapse was more egregious than Friedman's, even though Friedman led with his. We assume "it" is not traveling through Europe, while it's conceivable that an Iranian policeman was interviewing people on a beach.
The true interviewer was revealed in the next sentence. But it would have been so easy to avoid, in each case, the dangling participle. Friedman could have written: "Last week I was traveling in Europe, where every conversation seemed to end in some form of this question: ..." And Kristof should have said: "While I was interviewing people on a lovely Caspian Sea beach, a plainclothes policeman bustled forward."
Both columnists had important things to say (don't they all?), and perhaps they felt that their messages were more important than the words that conveyed them. That's the thinking of a lot of high school students, who now have two high-profile journalists to trot out to their teachers as exemplars.
