Dang dangling modifiers!

Been told you have a dangling modifier, but you have no idea what that means? Dangling modifiers are sneaky "ing" phrases that don't have a home, meaning the word they should describe or "modify" isn't present in the sentence. Here is an example: Going to the farmers' market, the sidewalk was blocked by construction. Who or what in this sentence is doing the "going"? The sidewalk? Nope. The people who are "going" do not show up in the sentence at all. I think we tend to write dangling modifiers for two reasons. We may just talk this way. If I said this sentence aloud, you would understand me because you would assume that "I" went to the farmers' market. But it is sloppy writing and can be corrected in many good ways: Going to the farmers' market, I found that construction blocked the sidewalk. Construction blocked the sidewalk on my way to the farmers' market. When I went to the farmers' market, the sidewalk was blocked by construction. Sidewalk construction blocked my way to the farmers' market. We also write dangling modifiers because we pause in the middle of writing to collect our thoughts and then restart mid-sentence without noticing the funny way the whole sentence comes out: Our little boy was wailing at the top of his lungs in the backseat driving down Highway 37. Here the writer paused to think about what to add and tacked a detail on the end, which seemed natural to the writer who had been doing the driving, but the whole effect sounds silly because either the backseat was driving or the little boy was. For how to punctuate well-written "ing" phrases, see my post on wacky "ing" phrases.