Yesterday, the Daily Mail, a newspaper published in London, censored prominent and influential American blogger Sean Gleeson, in order to cover up a grammatical error.

The incident occurred on Thursday, August 3, when the Daily Mail posted to their website a story containing a dangling participle. The error was in the third paragraph of the article “Vatican’s fury over Madonna ‘blasphemy,’” published on the site without a byline:

Having already been criticised in the United States, Catholics priests from across the Eternal City have gone one further saying the act is blasphemy.

Besides the extra ’s’ in “Catholics priests,” which was a venial mistake, the sentence committed a misplaced modifier, which is far more serious. According to grammar experts, “A modifier must never dangle, unless you want your sentence to mangle.” These experts advise writers “always to be on the lookout for dangling modifiers—participles, infinitive phrases, clauses, and prepositional phrases that grammatically modify the noun or noun phrase next to them but logically refer to a noun or noun phrase that has been displaced to another part of the sentence or is absent altogether.”

Using the comment form on the Daily Mail’s site, Gleeson pointed out the error, saying:

This is a dangling participle. Americans did not criticise Roman priests; they criticised Madonna’s blasphemous act.

The operators of the Daily Mail site hold all comments for moderation before allowing them to appear on the page. Ostensibly, this policy is in place to prevent the publication of offensive and inappropriate comments.

But even 24 hours later, and after dozens of comments have been approved, Gleeson’s correction still does not appear with the comments from other readers on that page. The grammatical error in the text still remains.

“I cannot think of any reason to censor my comment, except to cover up their crime against grammar. This has shaken my faith in the Daily Mail,” said a visibly shaken Gleeson. “I must say, I am stirred to suspicion,” he added, visibly stirred.

Constitutional legal experts agree that the Daily Mail, being foreign, is neither protected nor restrained by the United States Constitution.