Adjective and Adverb Appositives?

[miyako73]

Are there such appositives?

I once wrote, "She saw the ghost, white and floating."


My English teacher corrected me and scribbled, "If you meant the ghost was white and floating, your grammar was faulty."

Do you think my teacher was correct?

If she was, why is it that such construction is common in poetry and even in some published short stories and novels?

James Joyce "The Sisters"

" Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly."

Well, the same teacher said that Joyce's sentence above was grammatically problematic.

What's faintly and evenly? Night after night, I, it, or way?

Another example: "The Kite Runner" Khaled Husseini

"Then I glanced up and saw a pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky."

Who or what was red with long blue tails and soaring in the sky? He or the pair of kites? I know the author meant the kites, but if the line was about a dream, I could read it as a person flying.

Sorry, English is my second langauge, and I want to respect the language in my writing. The most I can do without adhering to grammar is using fragments.

What do you think?

[hillwalker]

Not faulty - more open to ambiguity perhaps.

But in most cases the reader would be astute enough to realise the 'ghost' was 'white and floating' rather than the viewer.

Where the meaning is perhaps open to misinterpretation (intentional or not) as in -

'The politician held the baby at arm's length, red-faced and bawling'

one could perhaps demand a rewrite in order that the reader is left in no doubt who is suffering a tantrum (but then of course, the ambiguity could be considered a humorous attempt to suggest it might apply to either).

H

[Jassy Melson]

I think the best rule is just to try to be as understandable as you can to the reader. If the adjective or adverb would be more understandable after the noun or phrase, put it there.