Crystal,
   The speaker certainly does risk sounding "snotty" (snobby?)
   "At the risk of sounding snotty" is a sentence modifier (a description
of how the speaker wants us to read the whole statement), but our first
inclination is to assign the risk to "a senior" and not to the speaker.
   "At the risk of being snotty for saying this, I believe a senior should
never split..." would make it clear.
   Would it make the writer less snotty to point out that it's a misplaced
modifier and that these things happen to the best of us? "Never" makes
it an extreme position.

Craig>


Dear All--
> Is anyone willing to share an effective way of teaching students the
> problem with a sentence like this:
>
> "At the risk of sounding snotty, a senior should never split an
> infinitive or dangle a participle."
>
> This was written by a senior at my college. I assume that he is
> burying his subject ("I") out of a sense that this is a formal
> occasion (he's complaining to a professor about other students). I
> see students make this kind of mistake often in such situations. I'm
> just not sure how to name this problem, or address it.
>
> Thank you,
> Crystal Benedicks
> Wabash College
>
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