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From: "Wink" <>
Subject: Re: mondegreen
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 10:15:08 +0100
References: <9hm0dj$5id$1@plutonium.btinternet.com>, <200107010847.f618lYI27713@smtp.freeola.enta.net>


<> wrote in message
>
> I have scoured my dictionaries and books of literary references and
> have not yet found "mondegreen". Is it a purely Times-invented word,
> do you think?
>
> Roy Stockdill, Editor, the Journal of One-Name Studies


I found it Roy!

mondegreen (MON-di-green) noun

A word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase
that has been heard.

[Coined by British author S. Wright]

"`Mondegreens can be found in every area of the spoken word,' writes
(Gavin) Edwards, `from the record buyer who asks for a copy of the Queen
single `Bohemian Rap City' (It's "Bohemian Rhapsody") to the schoolchild
who is convinced that the Pledge of Allegiance begins `I led the pigeons
to the flag.'"
Duckett, Jodi, 'The Ants Are' Lies in Garbled Lyrics, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, 19 Oct 1995.

Face it, you have been guilty of it since early childhood. Beginning with
the nursery rhymes you heard on the playground to the national anthem you
recited in school to crooning with the love songs on the radio, you have
been misinterpreting and repeating them. Now you know there is a word for
it and that you are not alone. Luckily there are no Mondegreen Police or we
would all be behind bars. No matter what your native tongue, chances are you
have experienced mondegreens in your language.

Whether you consider mondegreens a case of aural dyslexia or a variant of
Freudian slip, the results are often much more fascinating than the original
matter. The mondegreen effect is not limited to lyrics either. More than one
school librarian has seen distraught pupils complaining of not being able to
locate the book mentioned in their class: Charles Darwin's seminal work
"Oranges and Peaches". The other day I received a message requesting me to
add the sender to the mailing list she heard about over lunch. She thought
I run a mailing list called "What a day!" that is supposed to improve one's
vocabulary.

So how did we come to call this oral-cum-aural phenomenon mondegreen? It all
started when a courageous woman named Sylvia Wright confessed to mishearing
the following words of a Scottish folksong:
They hae slain the Earl of Moray / And laid him on the green as
They hae slain the Earl Amurray / And Lady Mondegreen

Imagine Wright's disappointment when she discovered that there was no Lady
Mondegreen who valiantly gave her life to be with her love. She wrote her
story in the November 1954 issue of Harper's Magazine and ever since we have
labeled these occurrences in honor of Lady Mondegreen's sacrifice.

Wink ;o)


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