During a visit to the Edinburgh Zoo, Geoff Pullum figures out the source of a remarkable piece of erroneous grammar advice that mistakes verbless clausal dangling modifiers for passive clauses.

Sheets don’t sleep. That’s why this sentence is a classic example of a dangling participle. A dangling participle is just one type of dangling modifier or, more simply, dangler.

Instead, the value of learning about the dreaded "dangling participle" is that you to get use the term "dangling participle," which in my experience is one of the best ways to win an argument ...