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I've increasingly noticed people online using the following construction, sans "if":

Imagine you died on Spotify Wrapped day.

To my ear, it feels like the sentence should read:

Imagine if you died on Spotify Wrapped day.

I know that this is related to the subjunctive mood, but is the first construction correct as well? Or is the "if" necessary? Or is "imagine if" a colloquialism to begin with?

I've tried to research this topic but mostly find results on "imagine" used in the imperative sense.

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    I consider "Imagine [that] something happened" to be the standard expression. This Ngram shows that imagine if has become much more common in the present century. Commented 2 days ago
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    "mostly find results on 'imagine' used in the imperative sense"—Well, this is basically what it becomes. John Lennon's "Imagine" follows none of its usages with "if," and it has a clear imperative intent ("It's easy if you try"), as well as a "what if" aspect of supposition. Commented 2 days ago
  • I would say that Imagine if you died on Spotify Wrapped day! is an exclamative, not an imperative. Commented yesterday
  • I feel "imagine that" is an equally valid alternative in that context. Although I also imagine that is true Commented yesterday

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To my mind, Imagine if you died omits the Direct Object; it reads:

Imagine [what would happen] if you died

which is slightly different than actually imagining your death (Imagine you died).

The version with if technically focuses less on the actual event and more on its consequences.

But in spoken language, the pragmatical meaning is probably the same. Just imagine this situation: what would happen? What would you do? How unfortunate would that be etc.

PS. While researching, I found rare examples with if in the dictionaries. So yes, definitely a colloquialism.

Here is one from Cambridge:

Imagine if you were suspected of a crime and police wanted to know where you were at 5 p.m.

Also, in addition to the Ngram @Kate provided, here is a comparison between the two variants. You will find that imagine that is far more common still.

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    "Imagine if" has the same logical redundancy as "suppose if" (or even "very unique"). Fortunately, "suppose if" is even less common than "imagine if". Commented yesterday
  • I'm not sure that '[finding] rare examples with X in the dictionaries' implies that the usage is 'definitely a colloquialism'. We might find find rare examples of the 'be-subjunctive', as with 'Imagine that he be pilloried' ... hardly colloquial. [But yes, this example is also informal.] Commented yesterday
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    I think this is the distinction that's been vexing me, since I see this phrase used most often in describing hypotheticals. Like if someone almost hit a dog with their car and said "Imagine if I had hit that dog/Imagine I had hit that dog/Imagine that I had hit that dog. The latter two constructions seem to be more literal in their request for the addressee to picture the scenario. Commented 18 hours ago
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As far as I know, "imagine if" is a distortion of the "proper" phrase "imagine that ...". As you use it, "imagine" is an imperative, as in "do (something)". It is probably so common as to be considered normal usage, but it doesn't really work for me.

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