"Mondegreen"
Here is a topic I robbed from an e-mail from my sister Leah a couple of years ago. She was quoting an article by Jon Carroll, SF Chronicle columnist. It is a useful and fun concept. Send me an e-mail with mondegreens of your own. rgb@who.net

It seems that a writer named Sylvia Wright coined the word mondegreen. It is defined as a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric. However, an example defines it better: Have you heard an innocent child sing the Christmas Carol “Silent Night”, and sing of that man, Round John Virgin?

I was reminded of this when I sent my brother Scott the words to the old song Grass shack in Kealakekua Hawaii and he confessed his reaction to the line "I want to go back to my fish and poi". "I always thought this was "I wanna go back to my fishin' poi" and I imagined a fishin' poi to be some cool grass roofed deck where folks would stand and fish from", he said.

Wright coined the word mondegreen as the result a similar experience. As a child she heard the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray" and had believed that one stanza went like this: Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands Oh where hae you been? They hae slay the Earl of Murray, And Lady Mondegreen.

Poor Lady Mondegreen, thought Sylvia Wright. A tragic hero and heroine dying together. It was poetic. She realized some years later that what they had actually done was slay the Earl of Murray and lay him on the green, Wright was so upset that she dedicated the confusion to Lady Mondegreen.

A few more examples are in order:

"Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" (Known to the rest of us as that fine old hymn "Gladly The Cross I'd Bear").

"There's a bathroom on the right," a mishearing of "There's a bad moon on the rise" from the old Creedence Clearwater song "Bad Moon Rising."

"Excuse me while I kiss this guy," actually "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" from the Jimi Hendrix song "Purple Haze." Mr. Hendrix was himself aware that he had been Mondegreened, and would occasionally, in performance, actually kiss a guy after saying that line.

The oldie song "Groovin" has a Mondegreen. In that song, the Rascals were singing "You and me endlessly," but many people heard "You and me and Leslie,"

The pledge of allegiance is a hotbed of Mondegreens. How about "I pledge a lesion to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the republic for Richard Stans, one naked, under god, individual, with liver tea and just this for all."

World War II was fought between the Zees and the Not Zees.

You won’t be surprised to hear that both Coke and Pepsi came in "cheerleader size." Sometimes called "two liter size."

You might be driving a "Jeep Parakeet," or a "Jeep Cherokee."

A rumor has it that a couple of lawyers in town just sat around on the weekend and “drank themselves to Bolivia”.

If you move breakable things up high when children are around, you are moving them "out of arm's sway."

Here are more from song lyrics: Remember on the East Side and the West Side when me and Mamie O'Rourke "risked our lives in traffic"? Remember that moment in "I'm in the Mood for Love" when the singer reveals his favorite nickname for his beloved? I'm in the mood for love, Simply because you're near me, Funny Butt, when you're near me ...

There was the Bob Dylan song with the refrain: "Dead ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind." There was the great Crystal Gayle song "Doughnuts Make Your Brown Eyes Blue." Some heard Jose Feliciano's famous recording of "Feliz Navidad" as "Police naughty dog".

A popular Spanish song, "One Ton Tomato."

Paul McCartney Mondegreens: The lines of French in "Michelle" were heard as "Michelle, ma bell, Sunday monkey won't play piano song, play piano song." "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" lyrics "the girl with kaleidoscope eyes" could be "the girl with colitis goes by."

And of course the old Christmas carol, "sleep in heavenly peas."

Jose' can you see?

RGB