Don't let your modifiers dangle

Today is National Grammar Day, so we at Easterween are raising a glass to those bastions of the written word, teachers and editors. Exactly what we're putting in the glasses we raise should become clear when you read our little ode.

Teachers and Editors

Teachers and editors
Are easy to annoy
Break some rules of grammar,
Their reaction’s such a joy
Teachers and editors
Are an irritable crowd
Their words sound strange, but
They say they’re right, and say it very loud
So teachers and editors
Are easy to annoy

Teachers and editors
Check the case of each pronoun
And if your modifiers dangle
They will drum you out of town
Their red pen and blue pencil
And yellow Post-It note
Are used to skewer details
Whose offense is quite remote
So teachers and editors
Are easy to put down

Teachers and editors
Are a cinch to irritate
A simple stray apostrophe
Will make them quite irate
A switch of whos and whoms
Or worse—of whichs, whats and thats—
Makes quite sufficient grounds
To send the dears completely bats
For teachers and editors
Find the smallest things will grate

While taxmen are taxing
And parents, a bore
And bankers, exacting
And hard to ignore,
And judges and lawyers
Exist to cause grief
And taxicab drivers
Are hell sans relief.
While security night guards
Are really too strict
And the moods of policemen
Are hard to predict,
While train drivers are strange
And bus drivers are worse
The men who sell tickets
Are widely diverse.
While managers bully
And waiters will sniff
And laundrymen leave
All your shirtcollars stiff,
While all these professions
Have habits that cloy,
Teachers and editors
Are easy to annoy

Teachers and editors
Apply the rules of a tidy mind
They excise split infinitives
Which are hard to ever find
They scratch out sentence fragments.
A bad idea? Aye!
And a sentence that ends in a preposition
They’ll never let get by
For teachers and editors
Tie themselves in an awful bind

Teachers and editors
Are easy to annoy
Give them a Sunday paper
And watch them self-destroy
Teachers and editors
Have skills they can deploy
But grammar is their idol
So they’re easy to annoy
Yes teachers and editors
Are people to enjoy.

For the record, if you're a teacher or editor you may feel free to say "Of course, this doesn't apply to me." We know that's certainly the case with the author of the piece, who has at various points in his life been both a teacher and an editor.