Who is watching with me?

[HBEN]

From the banks of this small town I can see the old man
The boat out on the sea.
If that's the way things here will be, then ask
Who is on the shore watching with me?

[jfgw]

Is it time for a clue?

I was wondering if the riddle is fairly literal. There are rocks called "the old man" and wonder if the answer is a lighthouse or something similar. I cannot pinpoint a specific town, however.

Or is it somewhat more metaphorical?

I hope it isn't rude

Julian F. G. W.

[AleisterCrowley]

Don't think you can see the Old Man of Hoy from any small towns
Interesting idea though!
I was thinking Hemingway...

[jfgw]

Don't think you can see the Old Man of Hoy from any small towns
Interesting idea though!
I was thinking Hemingway...

There are also The Old Man of Storr and The Old Man of Coniston. There may well be other Old Men.

Julian F. G. W.

[AleisterCrowley]

..and the Old Man of Lochnagar

[UncleEbenezer]

Lots of old men. And not just in geography: think Edward Lear, for instance.

There was an old man with a boat
who made to set sail in a moat.
The spectators all cheered,
but he tripped on his beard,
and only his hat stayed afloat.

[SteelCamel]

Well, as it doesn't look like we're getting any clues, I'm going to try an answer.

The young.






Why? Well, a couple of things struck me. One is that there should be an "and" between the first two lines - "I can see the old man and the boat out on the sea". But that's just down to poetry - or is it? The interesting thing with this riddle is that although it's laid out as a poem it doesn't scan all that well - the lines have 13, 6, 10 and 9 syllables. But re-write it as 10, 9, 10, 9 and you get:

From the banks of this small town I can see
The old man the boat out on the sea.
If that's the way things here will be, then ask
Who is on the shore watching with me?

The old man the boat is a classic "garden path sentence" - you start reading thinking it's about an old man, but it turns out "man" is a verb and you have to do a mental backspace. The riddle isn't saying he can see "the old man" and "the boat", it's saying that he can see "the old man the boat" - i.e. he notices that the old people form the crew of the boat the he is watching. And if the old man the boat, who does not man the boat and are therefore left behind on shore? The young.

[NomoneyNohoney]

Did you also paste your explanation on Reddit? The reason I ask is, on there the same riddle was posted, and today a user started off saying, "The old man the boat is a garden path sentence..."
Peculiar coincidence that you both used similar phrases to start your explanations.

[SteelCamel]

Nope, not me. I've never used Reddit. But it is a pretty well known example, it's in the first line of the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence. That and "The horse raced past the barn fell" are the examples that seem to come up whenever garden path sentences are discussed.