Native speakers of English, help me out here. Am I right in believing that the following sentence is not correct according to the rules of English grammar?
I keep seeing this sentence structure everywhere, including in academic sources, and I now wonder whether I’m insane and whether everyone else thinks this sentence makes sense.
Do you have any sources to support your opinion?
Clarissa's Blog 
It’s a dangling participle! and is not acceptable (last I knew) in formal academic style.
the subject of ‘by having’ is presumably PETA and so they should be the subject of the second clause ‘they can use the image…..
But news writing is largely outsourced for former colonies of English speaking countries and/or robots and then kind of cleaned up by editors who may or may not have the appropriate training and/or time to do a good job.
But this kind of structure is sort of okay in everyday semi-formal speech (between co-workers for example). That is anyone who pointed out the official grammar problem would be regarded as a pedantic twit.
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I don’t correct people when they speak, obviously, because everybody’s oral expression is more careless. But I do correct this a lot in student essays. And then I see this in academic writing, and I’m completely confused.
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I don’t agree. It is totally wrong, as you suggest. The nominative absolute cannot be used as a reference for the pronoun “it” here. “It” must refer to either the macaque or the image.
This would be correct only if the nominative absolute were changed to an adverbial clause, and the construction changed so that the antecedent of “it” is clear.
This may also depend on context. I have no idea what the prior sentence said.
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It sounds extremely wrong and confusing to me. But I keep seeing this structure everywhere, so I started to wonder if I’m the one who’s wrong here.
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It’s passive voice, and taken out of context, it’s not clear whether “it” refers to the macque or the image or who exactly would declare the monkey the owner of the selfie. The dangling participle makes the sentence vague. It’s not grammatically incorrect on its face, though.
Better:
By having the court declare the macque the image’s legal owner, PETA can use the image to raise money for animal welfare.
or
If PETA can get the court to declare the macque the image’s legal owner, PETA can use the monkey selfie to raise money for animal welfare.
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If a sentence makes the reader go back and re-read several times in order for them to even understand what it says, then that is one crappy sentence; your example fits the bill.
Pick us Steven Pinker’s “The Sense of Style.” He writes beautifully about various infractions against common sense and basic communication courtesy, like in your example above.
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The problem I see is lack of clear antecedent to the pronoun. “It” could refer to a macaque, an image, an owner, or maybe even an implied declaration. Because owner is the nearest noun, I initially assume “it” refers to the owner rather than to the image.
The passive voice isn’t grammatically incorrect. If the author is trying to emphasize that the declaration makes the image available for everyone, not just PETA, passive voice makes sense.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/pronouns-and-antecedents?page=1
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Also, I was taught not to use more words than necessary to make a point. Why not just say “declaring the macaque. . . can be used as. . .”? Why complicate things with this “it”?
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“It” refers to the image, not the macaque, so your suggestion does not cut many words and doesn’t necessarily avoid the ambiguous antecedent. “Declaring the macaque owner of the image allows it to be used…”
Also, avoiding unnecessary words is a matter of style, not grammar.
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Yes, it’s a disaster both grammatically and stylistically.
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I cannot figure out what this has to do with PETA. This radical fringe group is not mentioned anywhere in the quoted sentence.
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Apparently, PETA is suing for a photograph of the macaque to be declared the macaque ‘ s intellectual property.
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Apparently, PETA is suing for a photograph of the macaque to be declared the macaque ‘ s intellectual property.
This provides further evidence, were any needed, that PETA has left the shores of sanity for weirder seas, leaving all traces of rationality and good sense behind.
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“This provides further evidence, were any needed, that PETA has left the shores of sanity for weirder seas, leaving all traces of rationality and good sense behind.”
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I thought you made that sentence up to make a point! I didn’t realize that someone actually used it. Yes the problem is with the word “it.” “It” is the subject of the sentence but it’s at odds with the dependent/definitional clause preceding it.
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I really don’t have such an abundant imagination. 🙂
There is a link at the quote.
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The structure of the sentence is technically correct, because in English the subject of a independent clause (in this case, “it”) can be used to refer to an object in a dependent clause preceding it.
However, as written, the sentence is nonsensical, because the “it” must refer to “macaque,” and the macaque obviously can’t “be used to raise money for animal welfare.”
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This sentence is fascinating…in a nails-on-chalkboard sort of way. You see this ..construction..used a lot? (I didn’t know what to call it!) We can tell from sense they meant for the antecedent to be “image,” but I’m not sure that works at all. I think the only grammatical candidate for the antecedent of “it” is “having.”
But that makes no sense because the dependent clause is adverbial! So it cannot modify a noun (or pronoun)…I think that’s why our brains keep spinning…the thing we know it says doesn’t match the grammar!
The sentence I tried to construct failed:
By running around the track, he improved his endurance.
By running…adverbial clause (since “around the track” is filler grammatically) which modifies “improved.” He improved…how? By running around the track.
It can be used for animal welfare. How? By having the macaque declared the legal owner.
I think what they meant to say was:
SINCE the macaque was declared the legal owner, the picture it took can now be used for animal welfare.
Why on earth would someone use such tortured syntax? I don’t think you can fix it with that main clause.
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That’s precisely the effect these sentences have on me. They keep spinning and spinning around my head until I’m not sure if I’m crazy or the author is. And students surely do love these structures.
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The macaque wasn’t declared the legal owner. The U.S. Patient Office ruled that a “non-human” can’t hold a copyright. So perhaps they meant: “IF the macaque were declared the legal owner, THEN the picture could be used for animal welfare.”
Yet even that grammatically correct sentence makes no legal sense. Assuming that the monkey did own the copyright, how could PETA use the photo without the animal’s explicit permission? Wouldn’t PETA be required to have the macaque’s verbal or written consent? 🙂
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PETA should have made the legal argument that the circumstances in which the picture was taken mean that nobody holds a copyright, so the image is in the public domain, and therefore anyone can can use it as they choose. (PETA would have still lost the case, but they wouldn’t have sounded so silly.)
(I realize that the subject of this post is intended to be grammar and not law. Sorry.)
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I think PETA has long lost the capacity to choose the more reasonable option.
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This is just a more complicated version of a sentence like
“Having eaten our lunches, the steamship departed.”
It’s a little confused by the initial preposition, but still, two words in “By having…” I’m expecting the subject of the next clause to refer to whoever is having something done. So when “it” turns up as the subject I’m confused.
Again, dangling participles are not necessarily a big deal in spontaneous speech but it’s a good idea to avoid them in formal writing.
This is also part of what makes English difficult at advanced levels. Simple sentences in English are easy to put together, but anything longer than a single simple clause is fraught with difficulties. One big danger for writers is puttting something together that the writer finds easy to understand but which just confuses other people. Another is putting something together that the writer understands as they’re writing but which becomes incomprehensible later.
In Polish (and I presume Russian and Ukrainian) the opposite is true. It can be a bitch and a half to put a simple sentence together but it’s easy to put sentences together.
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Basically this is a crap sentence! The structure is awful, but I ‘did’ English grammar far too long ago to be able to define exactly how. I agree with other comments that the ‘it’ is vague.
The apparent intention is also totally bizarre.
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“By having the Marquis de Sade declared the world’s rightful owner, it may now be used to declare wars against common sense.”
[couldn’t resist re-framing things just a bit …] 🙂
Here’s a more useful question to ask: why would the referent go missing or become obfuscated in some contrived and awkward way?
One trick that may be used to make a missing referent take on an aura of official sanction is to make it appear that it issues rulings, makes decisions, and operates in ways that are similar to far-removed forms of officialdom, even when it doesn’t do any of these things itself.
In this case, “they” came up with a way to get the decision “they” wanted, so “they” must have some sort of power, and it is likely that “they” will continue to get what they want, etc. etc. … and therefore the moves “they” make may not be questioned, or at least that’s the general hope.
Once you see the trick in this light, you realise it’s an unsubtle way in which the writer chooses a side and then tries to get you to go along with that choice as well. The sad reality of this situation is that the writer may not realise that his or her choices have been co-opted, and that this form of talking around missing referents may have come from organisational choices that have been pushed downward. At best, the writer is well aware of the situation and has written in a quasi-authoritarian style in order to attempt to alert you to the presence of bold untruths.
In other words, it’s not just bad writing — it may well be masking flatly deceptive writing, and when you see this pattern, you should be asking about what else the authors (which are inevitably plural, rather than singular) have planned to hide within the piece …
Which, of course, is what you may also have sensed.
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This is a fascinating analysis.
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