Word order in sentence

Posted by Smokey Stover on April 21, 2004

In Reply to: Words order in sentence posted by Henry on April 21, 2004

: :
: : Funny enough, I think clients makes sense, not nonsense, ie. "We're a marketing firm. There are other..."

: As Maria realises, it's an ambiguous sentence. What are the agencies and who are the clients?

"There are other agencies which handle clients who have to live by advertising." Word order and punctuation conspire to give us the restrictive clause "who have to live by advertising." It can apply only to clients, not only by word order, but by logic. How could it possibly apply to agencies, which by definition live by advertising? Setting commas fore and aft of "which handle clients" leaves us with a sentence without intelligible meaning. Neither dependent clause here is a dangler or misplaced. SS