grammar - "As a [noun]" followed by mismatching subject


There is one particularly commonly used language construct that I find logically incorrect. However, as a non-native English speaker, I can't decide authoritatively on whether the usage is actually wrong.


Consider the following sentence:



As a web developer, I often help my friends with their websites when asked.



It is clear that I am a web developer and that I, when asked for help by my friends, do the favor for them.


Compare it with the following (disregard the slight difference in meaning — what is relevant is the change of subject):



As a web developer, my friends often ask me for help with their websites.



What does it mean now? I think it means that my friends, who are a web developer (!), often ask me for help. However, in informal writing, this usage is so common that it might actually happen to be correct! Perhaps in my head I'm automatically trying to translate the sentence into my native language, in which it sounds somewhat more ridiculous (it might also be the case that the ridiculousness arises merely from the fact that I am more used to the language I speak every day).


What is your view on this matter? I'd like to hear the opinion of a native speaker or someone who is experienced enough to provide a definitive answer.



Answer



Generally speaking, a dependent clause needs to be as close as possible to the word or phrase that it modifies. The word as used in this manner introduces a clause that modifies the subject of the sentence.


In the first example, which is correct, the phrase as a web developer applies to the immediately adjacent subject of the sentence, I. This makes sense and is grammatically correct.


The second example is ambiguous and grammatically incorrect. The position of the clause as a Web developer suggests that it modifies the subject, but there is a mismatch in number: the clause is singular, but the subject is plural.


Your reader can assume you mean to modify either the subject or the predicate or both, but this leads to ambiguity. Here it might not matter so much: the I of the sentence is probably a Web developer or he wouldn't be asked, and the friends are probably Web developers too or they wouldn't be asking.


But sometimes it matters a great deal. Who's killing whom in this example?


As a mass murderer, his friends sought to execute him.


But good grammar makes another important difference: it rests more musically on the mind's inner ear, which makes for good writing as opposed to mediocre writing in which we know what the writer meant, even if he didn't say it correctly. Or at least we think we know what he meant.


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