Ellipsis related to subjunctive mood? [closed]

You Sunk My Carrier: How the Navy Could Sink China's New Aircraft Carriers

That means war. Here's how it goes down.

by James Holmes

National Interest.org

Although It is certain that an event is imaginary and the writing is in the news' header, I felt it a little bit awkward for the writer to have written the sentence "You Sunk My Carrier" as above.

If it means "If you sank my carrier," then it might be written as "You Sank My Carrier." If it means "If you have sunk my carrier," could it be correct as "You Sunk My Carrier"? If it means "If you sink my carrier, " could it be correct as "You Sink My Carrier"?

Thank you in advance for any suggestion.

Solution 1:

The headline writer in this case is borrowing the You Sunk My Battleship meme to work the audience for nudges of recognition.

Since it is a meme, you should consider it as a "frozen phrase" and therefore it will always be sunk and not sank. (Although as Peter Shor noted in the comments, either sank or sunk is accepted as simple past tense.)

Solution 2:

It’s a reference to the game Battleship. In the game, 2 players place their various ships (including a carrier) on their own individual boards. Players cannot see each other's boards, but call out co-ordinates which are met with "Hit" or "Miss" depending on whether the co-ordinate contains a battleship or not. When a complete vessel is hit, the player declares "You sunk my ".

Urban Dictionary elaborates:

you sunk my battleship

What a player yells after getting their ass bombed in the popular 80s boardgame "Battleship."

As Robusto correctly points out, it’s now considered a unit of cultural information and used widely.