A grammar lesson for the Sugababes

The Sugababes are very popular in Germany at present. (Go figure!) Their most popular song is currently "Push the Button". As a consequence, even though I only listen to the radio for a couple of hours a day, scarcely a day goes by in which I don't hear this song at least twice. I don't actually even mind the song - though I'd never buy it - so all would be well and good, if it weren't for a grammar error in the lyrics which is so bad as to make my teeth hurt.

The culprit is this two line section, which - as sod's law would of course have it - appears thrice:

After waiting patiently for him to come and get it
He came on through and asked me if I wanted to get with him

What the Sugababes mean is this:

I had been waiting patiently for quite some time to see if he'd finally get up the gumption to make a move. Eventually, he finally came over and said "Get your coat love, you've pulled."

But what their lyrics actually say is something different entirely. A third person, a man, has been thrown into the equation, thus:

Man 1 had been waiting patiently for quite some time to see if man 2 would finally get up the gumption to make a move (either on me or indeed on man 1 - that's not clear). Eventually (either:) man 1 gave up on waiting for man 2 and came over to me and said "Get your coat love, you've pulled!",( or:) man 2 came over to me and said "Get your coat love, you've pulled!" (thus leaving man 1 standing at the bar like a sad and oddly desperate voyeur.)

This is a classic misrelated participle, or hanging modifier. And it hurts.

After waiting ... is a participial phrase. Though it is possible for a participial phrase at the beginning of the sentence to have an explicit subject of its own (e.g. Her voice [subj. of part. phr.] breaking with emotion, Angela [subj. of main cl.] spoke of her son's battle with cancer), the Sugababes' participial phrase doesn't have an explicit subject. The subject is implied. That is, the participial phrase inherits its subject from the the main clause which follows. Since the subject of the Sugababes' main clause is manifestly 'he' and not 'I', this renders their lyrics utter nonsense.

The rule is so simple:

A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject of the main clause, unless the participial phrase contains its own explicit grammatical subject.

The truly frustrating thing is that in this particular case, the Sugababes could get around their grammatical mangling and have their lyrics actually make sense without even altering the rhythm or number of syllables. If their lyrics ran:

I'd been waiting patiently for him to come and get it
He came on through and asked me if I wanted to get with him

then all would be well with the world and my teeth would be spared. Of course, then I'd have nothing to complain about, would I?

Tags:
Sugababes
language
grammar