The electrostatic moments on the atoms or molecules of a monolayer solid ar
e the source of an electric field with spatial variation determined by the
reciprocal-lattice vectors of the monolayer. Center-of-mass oscillations of
the monolayer generate an oscillating electric field in a metallic substra
te. The contribution of the resulting Ohmic loss to the damping of the osci
llation on a normal metal is evaluated for adsorption dipole moments, with
parameters for Xe/Ag(111), and for the molecular quadrupole moments in a mo
nolayer herringbone lattice, with parameters for N-2/Pb and N-2/Ag(111). Th
e analysis is very similar to the theory of the anomalous skin effect: the
anomalous response arises because the spatial length scale of the driving f
ield is small compared to the mean free path of electrons in the normal met
al.