GrammarBlog

I am the proud manager of a hugely unsuccessful Fantasy Football team with the Daily Telegraph. The venerable Alan Hansen is the resident celebrity pundit and earns his endorsement fee by writing (or maybe just approving ) the odd email newsletter.

We're used to sports pundits talking rubbish, but this email takes the half-time orange.

The one good thing about being a TFF manager as opposed to the real thing is at least you shouldn't get the sack. Newcastle have about as much patience as a closed down hospital and so Big Sam Allardyce has now been reduced to something a lot smaller.

Pardon, Alan? Have you been at the scotch?

Firstly, the verbal pun on patience/patients doesn't really work written down, especially as the use of the determiner 'much' isn't appropriate for the alternate meaning. You can't say a hospital has much patients. However the funniest aspect of this garbled paragraph is the implication that Sam Allardyce used to be bigger than a closed down hospital. I suppose that would justify the nickname Big Sam.

Anyone familiar with BBC football coverage will be aware that, due to Hansen's favourite sitting position – slouched and splayed, his modifiers are not the only things to be seen dangling.

Labels: dangling modifiers, determiners, newspapers, Pundrity