So John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats does this thing in some of his lyrics where he’ll start a sentence out with a verb as though it’s an imperative, but it’s from a first-person POV. There’s a lot of examples but the song “Counterfeit Florida Plates” is the one that comes to mind first, for me. Is there a technical term for what he’s doing here?
EDIT: changed wording to be less ambiguous
If I understand it correctly, it may be a garden path sentence. The usual construction of a garden path sentence is where a sentence, when read, the part of speech for a word is different than immediately considered.
The old man the boats.
Here it seems when considered a word at a time that the old man… Oh wait “man” is not the subject of the sentence, “Old” is not an adjective.
Not exactly, but I don’t blame you for being confused. I didn’t realize my own wording was ambiguous! “Counterfeit Florida Plates” is the name of the song where the type of lyrics I’m referring to are used. An example:
Steal some sunscreen/From the CVS/Use too much/And make a great big mess/Wait where shadows/Mask or hide my scent
Normally a sentence starting with a verb like that is an imperative or a command, with “you” being the understood subject. But here, the narrator is talking about himself in first person (“mask or hide my scent”). So I was wondering if that usage had a name.
He’s dropping the I, eg.
I steal some sunscreen
I use too much
I wait
As you’re specifically asking for a name: it’s a form of ellipsis, specifically one in which the sentences‘ subject is dropped.
Thanks for not blaming me.
According to Google, a garden path sentence is one that misleads or tricks. Part of speech doesn’t seem to be a definitional feature. Unless someone comes up with a better answer, I think I might be right.
Huh, TIL… these are really cool!
I don’t know if there’s a name for it as a literary technique, but it’s an example of Implied Subject in grammar. In English, we almost always used an implied subject in imperative sentences, but that page offers examples of many other situations we use it, too.
Coming off of this discussion, what you have there might be an extreme version of diazeugma, one with an implicit subject.
Either way, I learnt something new today - zeugma. So thank you :)
Edit: I just realised… please, no juvenile jokes about “sugma” in this thread, thank you.
