Ambiguous modifiers

Here are some examples of sentences where a better placed prepositional phrase would lead to clarity, but a misplaced one leads to humor. They come from The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker.

“I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know,”  Groucho Marx.

Two cars were reported stolen  by the Groveton police yesterday,

Tonight’s program discusses stress, exercise, nutrition, and sex with Celtic forward Scott Wedman, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and Dick Cavett.

We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.

For sale:  Mixing bowl set designed to please a cook with round bottom for efficient beating.

Exercise: Rewrite these sentences to make them clear.

grammar exercises, grammatical language, linguistics in the classroom, semantics, teaching grammar, word order

Semantics, Syntax