“Walking across the park, the coins fell through a hole in his pocket.”

It is a remarkable statement. We are inclined to ask, Why were the coins walking across the park? Why weren’t the coins at school? Let us ponder.

What we have here is a Duck-Billed Dangler, a species of bird life closely related to the Lonesome Adverb. Everyone knows the dangler, so-called because the phrase “walking across the park” just dangles there. It is an orphan, bereft of a subject to cling to. By the same token, everyone knows the Lonesome Adverb: Luckily, we are not required to diagram its place in prose composition.

The species goes back a long way. One scholar cites danglers in the work of 68 respected authors, from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Robert Louis Stevenson. “Turning the corner, a handsome building appeared.” “Flying low, a herd of cattle could be seen.” “Quickly summoning an ambulance, the corpse was carried to a mortuary.”

A few contemporary specimens merit your attention.

In Brevard, N.C., the Womble Inn invites its guests to enjoy a wide variety of activities. Then, “After a sound sleep, your breakfast will be served in the dining room between 8 and 9 o’clock.” Of course, if the breakfast wants to sleep until 10, it will have to wait for lunch.

Danglers turn up everywhere. This is from The Wall Street Journal: “Named in 2000 to head the company’s global research, the 40-year-old Mr. Donnelly’s previous position was at GE Medical Systems.” The previous position will head the research?

The Wall Street Journal also has contributed a sobering thought about our sources of energy: “Once thought plentiful, the U.S. is now facing a shortage of natural gas that could last for years.” The sentence prompted the Journal’s in-house critic to ask, “The U.S. isn’t as plentiful as we once thought?”

This was a dispatch from Miami Beach three years ago: “The palazzo was the stately retreat of fashion designer Gianni Versace. Gunned down on the steps of his mansion, tourists come like pilgrims to a shrine in this playground of glamour.” Poor tourists! Gunned down, they were.

Danglers are closely related to the Lonesome Adverbs. The best known of these, of course, is “hopefully,” as in, “Hopefully the game will be rained out.” Others flutter like a flock of sparrows: clearly, surely, certainly, surprisingly. The most objectionable of the Lonesome Adverbs is “frankly,” as in, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” It is a truism that any man who says “frankly” is not to be trusted with one’s daughter. “Candidly” is as threatening as “honestly.”

The lesson in all this is to keep our modifiers closely tied. Left alone, they fly off to all kinds of popular clauses.

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.

You will find an extended discussion of danglers in Bryan Garner’s Dictionary of Modern American Usage (Oxford, 1998). The most familiar species is the Participial Dangler: “Watching from the ground below, the birds flew ever higher until they disappeared.” We escape from the watching birds by providing a proper subject, always a humane purpose: “As we watched from the ground below, the birds flew higher,” and so forth.

Garner identifies a Present-Participial Dangler: “Applying those principles to the present situation, it is clear that …” And the Past-Participial Dangler: “Born in Georgia in 1944, Simms’ qualifications made him …” He does not overlook the Dangling Gerund, which hangs onto a sentence by its toes: “Without belaboring the point, the central premise of this article is that …”

Garner concludes his taxonomy with a philosophical shrug. Some Participial Danglers have been flying so long that we have learned to live peacefully with them. He cites the most common ones: according, assuming, barring, concerning, considering, judging, owing, regarding, respecting. An example: “Considering how hated Belichick was in Cleveland, it’s incredible that another owner would want him as head coach.” And, “Horticulturally speaking, the best way to prune the tree is probably to remove …”

In whatever form,