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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2001-07 > 0994106339


From: "A. Jones" <>
Subject: Re: mondegreen
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 21:38:59 +0100
References: <9hm0dj$5id$1@plutonium.btinternet.com>, <200107010847.f618lYI27713@smtp.freeola.enta.net>, <9hmon1$c4m$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk>



"Wink" <> wrote in message
news:9hmon1$c4m$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
> <> 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]
>

A web search using "Google" will reveal a considerable number of sites
which specialise in "Mondegreens". They generally seem to agree that the
word was coined by Sylvia Wright in "Harpers Magazine", 1954. One site
quotes a letter to "London Review of Books" from her sister, Phyllis Wright
King in which she points out that Sylvia Wright (1917-1981) was [not
surprisingly?] an American.

AJ


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