The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167952   Message #4055413
Posted By: Mr Red
27-May-20 - 03:54 AM
Thread Name: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
"The mother gave her daughter her sandwich". - In my mind, without parenthetical commas, the ambiguity is academic, or weak at most.

Thus any song would stretch the listeners' minds to the point that any narrative would be somewhat lost in the translation. Poem or lyric you stand a chance. In aural song, punctuation is the ambiguity.

May I offer an old (older than the Lynne Truss book) joke that:
A Kiwi is an animal that eats,** shoots and leaves.

** ambiguity being verbal IMNSHO