Question

1 on her way home from practice, rebekka found a gold mans watch. 2 she wasnt sure what to do. 3 there was no name engraved on the back. 4 looking at the gold links on the band, the watch seemed to rebekka to be expensive. 5 she felt badly that someone had lost such a nice watch.

what is the best revision of the error in sentence 1?

• \gold watch of a man\
• \mans gold watch\
• \mans watch of gold\

Explanation:

🆕 New Concept Discovered: Misplaced Modifiers
Modifiers should sit right next to the words they describe to avoid confusion.

Step 1: Identify the modifier error in sentence 1

Sentence 1 reads:
"On her way home from practice, Rebekka found a gold man's watch."

The phrase "gold man's" contains a misplaced modifier. As written, the adjective "gold" is placed directly before "man's," which makes it sound like the man himself is made of gold ("a gold man").

Step 2: Determine the intended meaning

The author intends to describe the watch as being made of gold, and that the watch belongs to or is designed for a man. Therefore, "gold" needs to modify "watch," not "man."

Step 3: Evaluate the options

• "gold watch of a man": This is wordy and sounds unnatural.
• "man's gold watch": This correctly places "gold" right next to "watch" (describing the watch as gold) and "man's" before "gold watch" (indicating it is a watch for a man). This is concise and grammatically correct.
• "man's watch of gold": This is unnecessarily wordy and less concise.

The best and most concise revision is "man's gold watch".

Answer:

"man's gold watch"