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Message 357: Anapodoton

In His Rope, Thom Yorke sings:

Here’s the tiny piece of you I save
Just enough rope

https://genius.com/Burial-four-tet-and-thom-yorke-his-rope-lyrics

The phrase, “just enough rope” is a shortening of, “give him/her just enough rope to hang himself/herself.” Giving a person, “just enough rope” in this way means setting them up for failure. In the song, the person being setup for failure

In rhetoric, truncating a commonly known phrase in this manner is called anapodoton.

And using common phrases in this way is something Yorke has a history of doing, as I’ve tried to document.

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