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I’m in love with garden path sentences
When I first heard of a garden path sentence I couldn’t help but not finish what I had started. Just the name itself alludes to something so magical and beautiful—leading the way through a lovely garden full of wisdom is heaven on earth! But that’s not always the case.
Unlike the name suggests, a garden path sentence doesn’t take you down a corridor of flowery décor. To be led down the garden path means to be deceived, or to have been proceeded wrongly. It is almost, if not always, grossly unkempt phrases, misplaced and busy, and at the same time, annoying and empty. Once you get the hang of it though, it feels almost eye-opening, and there emerges your blossoming roses and petunias. OK… Enough with the garden analogies.
Garden path sentences are a mystery. They are to be solved and revealed. They can be a result of purposely poor explanations, leaving too much to interpretation. Forming a garden path is destined for confusion; not immediately understanding the meaning creates uneasiness, like those psychological optical illusions that mislead our brains into believing that both an old and young lady live in the drawing below. Allowing a single word to throw you off is the art of deceit.
Below are some of my favourites;
The old man the boat.
The horse raced past the barn fell.
They painted the wall with cracks.
I don’t know why I’m so drawn to these. I love the way words fill meaning in any order you put them in. It’s like controlled chaos where you know this shouldn’t be a completed sentence, but it is. Because they are so specific to the subject, it is almost impossible to acclimate them in our every day, especially due to their complexity and downright impracticality. All assumptions and intended meanings disappear while figuring it out on your own. It begs to be read. And once you finally figure them out, it’s impossible not to share (at least this was the case, for me).
Here are the explanations, or at least their assertive versions, uncovered:
The old control or steer the boat.
The horse that was raced past the barn, fell down.
They painted the wall that has cracks on it.
In addition to a single unshaped word, there’s also the beauty in the punctuation—a telling moment where to pause while reading is akin to creating tension in conversation, similar to “comedic timing.” This is my favourite part of writing. I get to play around with the way things are said; not just interpreted. I leave no room for nuisance. I get to place the words next to each other. They are meant to be there.
This year, I’d like to take my writing a little more seriously. This means I’d like to take my time with what I write, only letting myself publish at least once a month, but hoping to hit milestones in between. To be fair, after a full day of writing, it’s tough to come home and write something feasible without the ick of putting out something subpar to work. I need to accept my own standards here. It will take time. I want to get better. I want to garden path sentence.
