Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song

Subject: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 May 20 - 06:41 AM

Just a bit of levity in these times of adversity.

The English Language is well known for being ambiguous, particularly in respect to the lack of reflexive pronouns, for example.... "The mother gave her daughter her sandwich".

The challenge, first prize lots of kudos, to write a short or even long song that can be interested in more than one way. This is not about using symbolism and/or double-entendre but paying upon gramatic ambiguity.

Good luck.....

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 May 20 - 09:34 AM

There's a lot of grammatic ambiguity in your post, SPB!

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 May 20 - 09:50 AM

And mine. (grammatically speaking).

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Mr Red
Date: 27 May 20 - 03:54 AM

"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

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 27 May 20 - 04:42 AM

Looking at the third sentence of the original post, I wonder if a song/verse which can, at the very least, be taken in a number of different ways (at least two...) might not be contrived from likely, or familiar, "Autocorrect" spell-checking things. Is that an interesting interpretation?

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 May 20 - 06:29 AM

I saw a hound chase a hare above my head up in the air
An eagle swooped upon the hare whilst eating of an unripe pear
I broke a tooth and went to hell with him that bore away the bell
Because he beat me black and blue the ink that wrote this story true.

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 May 20 - 03:01 PM

From the Tavern, not sure if it counts but I am really proud of these paragraphs! Note that the African mentioned is, actually, Ivorian.

Severn, Ada, Nyna and Tennyson Clark arrive with their vertical smiles...

Meanwhile the bat is back at the Ringworld beach scarfing the neck of the lamb, wearing shades and hanging upside-down from a sunny-side up palm frond (with no egg on their face).

The smallest squidlet is farting bubbles in the tide-pool. Those nearby are fit to be tied. Most everybody else is just unfit.

The crowd at the bar is no longer three-deep, but too many of its members are lawyers for the ballerinas to be able to kick up their heels in the style to which we'd all like to become accustomed.

The musicians are fading, especially the ghost of Ed McCurdy, whose rich and almost furry baritone has lost its pear-shaped tones thanks to singing with a trio. The harpist is still going on and on, though.

The African Man uses his marvelous feet to bring the bat another hot whiskey, walking out in his tie-dyed socks onto the hot, hot beach. A strand of his wild hair blows in the zephyr over the ivory sands of the coast as he turns back, just in time for the empty glass, slipping from the bat's greasy claws, to miss him by millimeters. The sand may be hot but it's soft, so only the fall is broken, not the glass. After all, it isn't autumn on *this* beach.

It may be easy to fool some people but hot whiskey is not served in a mug...

The bat, after a refreshing and cleansing dip in the surf, flutters back indoors, squeaking for crudités. Yo Yo Ma told Boutros Boutros Ghali that the couscous was so-so, but it was actually truly scrumptious, which causes Dick van Dyke to show up in some kind of noisy contraption on wheels. The gulls take exception as their colony moves through the sky above the island, dancing an arial avian scottische. A red-headed mermaid sings just beautifully along with the tooralooras, gracefully dodging the gull guano.

What a lovely and promiscuous time is being had by all!

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 May 20 - 02:08 PM

I always think that line in the last verse of "Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy" is a bit ambiguous:
"We'll return to our wives and our families, AND the girls that we adore": same girls or different ones??

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 03:03 AM

same girls or different ones?? or daughters? Ambiguity = verbal and textual.

In song, homophones create ambiguity which don't translate on the page nearly as well. This is in the realm of the "pun".

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 10:02 AM

Tattie, some of us have wives, some of us families, some girlfriends. It's just listing the possibilities for each individual's situation.
Of course nowadays the list might be much longer, partners, boyfriends, gender neutrals, trans etc. That's not to say that some of the soldiers might well have had several wives, families and girlfriends. :)

Subject: RE: Challenge - Ambiguous Folk Song
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Jun 20 - 06:21 PM

Where did soldiers come from? 'Sailors' of course.