- The letter having been written, she quickly ran to the post office to send it.
- Having been written, she quickly ran to the post office to send the letter.
Are both sentences OK? Do they mean the same?
Both are wrong. They are examples of misrelated participles. ‘The letter’ and ‘she’ are not the same.
Alan,
Are they dangling participles?
Please correct them.
Hi Allifathima,
The main problem is that the participial phrase in those sentences is passive, and the subject of the introductory phrase is different from the subject of the main clause. You can fix sentence 1 this way:
- 1a. Having written the letter, she quickly ran to the post office to send it.
The participial phrase above is no longer passive. Now the subject of the introductory participial phrase is the same as the subject of the main clause. The basic meaning is: She wrote the letter, and then she mailed the letter.
If you attempt to keep the passive voice in the introductory participial phrase, then you need to make the main clause passive as well:
[i]- 2a. The letter having been written, it was quickly mailed at the post office (by her).
- 2b. Having been written, the letter was quickly mailed at the post office (by her).[/i]
Thus, the subject of the introductory participial phrase and the subject of the main clause are the same: [b]The letter[/b] was written, and then [b]the letter[/b] was mailed.
[color=white].Hi Esl Expert,
Having been written the letter, she quickly mailed it through the psst office.
Do you think it makes enough sense by this context?
No.
But I wonder how Alan has declared both wrong. In my view :
The first sentence is acceptable.
The second should be : Having written the letter, she quickly ran to the post office to send it.
You need some changes:
Having written the letter, she quickly mailed it at the post office.
No, ‘having been written the letter’ itself is grammatically incorrect, doesn’t make sense, and cannot be used no matter what the rest of the sentence is. The main problem is the addition of ‘been’. That’s wrong. (Beeesneees gave you the correction above.)
[color=white].
Hi T_H_Lawrence,
You say:
.
I’ll tell you -
In the first sentence ‘she’ isn’t the letter, is she?
In the second sentence ‘she’ hasn’t been written, has she?
But that is what both sentences are telling you.
Hello, Alan!
We come across situations like this in the examinations for post school level students:
“Combine the following two simple sentences into a single simple sentence.
The driver fell ill. John drove his car himself.”
The examinees, as they are usually taught, would mostly answer this way:
“[color=red]The driver having fallen ill John drove his car himself.
OR
John drove his car himself because of the driver’s illness.
OR
John’s driving of his car himself was due to the driver’s illness.”
Though there may still be other ways of turning them into a simple sentence, we cannot but say (according to you) that the first answer is wrong. Is that the position?
I obviously have failed to make myself clear. I am not saying what is wrong and what is right.
Your sentence:
is a different example from the ones above and it is clear
that there are two different subjects associated with two active verb forms and there isn’t any ambiguity. In the sentences to which I referred there is ambiguity as I have explained.
What if we modify it this way:
Having been written the letter was sent to the recepient.
Will it work?
Thanks!
Well, Bees–,
I just make the context a few change, like,
Having been delayed by the heavy load shedding, I came at the forum late.
We know verbal modifier needs immediate the noun that it modifies.
Do you think it makes sense the dangling modifier correctly now?
Still sounds a bit awkward to me.
TOEIC listening, talks: Road traffic report
Thanks Torsten,
Again, we learn if the place is small we should use ‘at’, then further big place ‘in’ and so on.
What about your comment?
Couldn’t we use here ‘on’ as well?
Beeesneees,
“Having been delayed by the heavy load shedding, I came to the forum late.”
Torsten says this sentence sounds a bit awkward.
Please correct it.
Having been delayed by a traffic incident whereby a lorry shed its heavy load, I came to the meeting late.
Mention of a ‘heavy load shedding’ sounds really odd.
The nature of a forum does not make it something you can arrive late for.
Hi Dean,
That will work only if you add a comma (and change an e to an i):
- Having been written[size=184],[/size] the letter was sent to the recipient.
[color=white].
Hi Amy,
Thanks a lot!
I was just looking into other possibilities. I see that “having been written the letter” needed a comma to be correct. :))
Wrong. It needed not only the comma (in the correct spot), but also an appropriate end to the sentence. In and of itself, 'having been written the letter’ is just plain incorrect.
