Does this literary device/technique have a name? (beehaw.org)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by EponymousBosh@beehaw.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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

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[-] GroteStreet@aussie.zone 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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.

this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024

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