Mondegreen

A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result near homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning. It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.

American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954.

"Mondegreen" was included in the 2000 edition of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added the word in 2008.

Rap and hip-hop lyrics may be particularly susceptible to being misheard because they are often improvised and frequently lack an official, written version. This issue gained publicity in 2010 over multiple errors claimed in lyrics printed in the Anthology of Rap, printed by Yale University Press.

Mondegreens also occur in languages other than English. In Russia, Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1875 ironically cited a line from Fyodor Glinka's song "Troika" (1825) колокольчик, дар Валдая (‘the bell, gift of Valday’) claiming that it is ever comprehended as колокольчик, дарвалдая (‘the bell darvaldaying’ - the onomatopoetic verb for ringing). Ghil'ad Zuckermann cites the Israeli example mukhrakhím liyót saméakh (‘we must be happy’) instead of (the high-register) úru akhím belév saméakh (‘wake up, brothers, with a happy heart’), from the well-known song Háva Nagíla (Let’s be Happy)." A collection of items submitted by Hindi speakers (and relating mainly to songs in Bollywood movies) is available online.

A closely related category is the soramimi, which are songs that produce different meanings from those originally intended when interpreted in another language.

Etymology

In the essay, Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonny Earl O'Moray". She wrote:

When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl O' Moray,

And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". Wright explained the need for a new term: "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original."

Other examples Wright suggested are:

• Surely Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life ("Surely goodness and mercy…" from Psalm 23)
• The wild, strange battle cry "Haffely, Gaffely, Gaffely, Gonward." ("Half a league, half a league,/ Half a league onward," from "The Charge of the Light Brigade")

Examples

Examples in song lyrics

The top three mondegreens submitted regularly to mondegreen expert Jon Carroll are:

1. "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear (from the line in the hymn "Keep Thou My Way" by Fanny Crosby, "Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I'll bear") Carroll and many others quote it as "Gladly the cross I'd bear".
2. There's a bathroom on the right (the line at the end of each verse of "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival: "There's a bad moon on the rise")
3. 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy (from a lyric in the song "Purple Haze", by Jimi Hendrix: "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky").

Both Creedence's John Fogerty and Hendrix eventually capitalized on these mishearings and deliberately sang the "mondegreen" versions of their songs in concert.

"Blinded by the Light," a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song by the Manfred Mann's Earth Band, contains what has been called "probably the most misheard lyric of all-time": "revved up like a deuce" is frequently misheard as "wrapped up like a douche." The comedy show The Vacant Lot built an entire skit, called "Blinded by the Light", around four friends arguing about the lyrics.

A number of misheard lyrics have been recorded, turning a modegreen into a real title. They include:

• The song "Sea Lion Woman", recorded in 1939 by Christine and Katherine Shipp, was performed by Nina Simone under the title "See Line Woman" and later by Feist as "Sealion". According to the liner notes from the compilation "A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings," the actual title of this playground song might also be "See [the] Lyin' Woman" or "C-Line Woman."
• Jack Lawrence's misinterpretation of the French phrase "pauvre Jean" ("poor John") as the identically pronounced "pauvres gens" ("poor people") led to the translation of La goualante du pauvre Jean ("The Ballad of Poor John") as The Poor People of Paris, which in no way hindered it from becoming a major hit in 1956.
• The Joni Mitchell cover of the Lambert, Hendricks & Ross song "Twisted" includes a mondegreen: the original lyric They all laughed at A. Graham Bell was misheard and subsequently recorded by Mitchell as They all laugh at angry young men.

Examples in literature

• "A Monk Swimming" by author Malachy McCourt (brother of Frank McCourt) is so-titled because of a childhood mishearing of a phrase from the Catholic rosary prayer, Hail Mary. 'Amongst women' became 'a monk swimming'.
• In Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest, Ramona's sister "Beezus" makes fun of her for mishearing the words of the Star-Spangled Banner as being about a "dawnzer" (a type of lamp, in Ramona's estimation), which gives off a "lee" light ("By the dawnzer lee light").
• The title of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye comes from the main character, Holden Caulfield, mishearing of a sung version of the Robert Burns' poem Coming Through the Rye: the line "Gin a body meet a body/ comin' through the rye" is understood as "Gin a body catch a body/ comin through the rye."

Examples in television

• "Mondegreens" is the name of a segment on the Australian music quiz show Spicks and Specks (ABC TV).
• The Two Ronnies comedy skit "Four Candles" is entirely built around mondegreens, including a customer request for "fork handles" being misheard as "four candles".

Reverse mondegreen

There are compositions which appear nonsensical but which can be interpreted homophonically as a rational text.

A prominent example is Mairzy Doats, a 1943 novelty song by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston, which works the other way around. The lyrics are a mondegreen and it's up to the listener to figure out what they mean.

The refrain of the song repeats nonsensical sounding lines:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey

A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe

The clue to the meaning is contained in the bridge:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,

Sing "Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy."

The listener can figure out that the last line of the refrain is "A kid'll eat ivy, too; wouldn't you?", but this line is sung only as a mondegreen.

Other examples include:

• Iron Butterfly's 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", a reverse mondegreen of the phrase "In The Garden of Eden," which was going to be the song's title, according to liner notes.
• Sly and the Family Stone's 1970 hit "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" is pronounced "Thank You For Lettin' Me Be Myself Again".
• A plot line in the 1945 comedy-mystery film Murder, He Says, which involves a nonsense ditty repeated by a character, which is a reverse mondegreen that contains a clue to finding some lost money.

Deliberate mondegreen

Main article: Homophonic transformation

Luis van Rooten produced a volume of pseudo-French poetry, Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames, complete with critical, historical and interpretive apparatus, which are actually elaborate, extended mondegreens for English-language nursery rhymes. This can also be considered soramimi, which produces different meanings when interpreted in another language. Some performers and writers have used deliberate mondegreens to create double entendres, including:

• The lyric "if you see Kay" (F-U-C-K) was employed by blues pianist Memphis Slim in 1963, R. Stevie Moore in 1977, April Wine on its 1982 album Power Play, the Poster Children in 1990, and Turbonegro in 2005, as well as a line from James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses. Britney Spears did the same thing with the song "If U Seek Amy", as did The Script in their 2008 song "If You See Kay" and Aerosmith in "Devil's Got a New Disguise."
• The liner notes in the album Ænima by the metal band Tool feature the phrase see you auntie (C-U-N-T).

See also

• Ambiguity
• A Monk Swimming
• Amphibology
• Double entendre
• Eggcorn
• Folk etymology
• Holorime
• Homophonic translation
• Mad Gab
• Malapropism

• Mind Rhyme
• Olive, the Other Reindeer
• Optical illusion (visual analogy)
• Phono-semantic matching
• Relaxed pronunciation
• Satiric misspelling
• Soramimi
• Subliminal message
• That's what she said

Further reading

• Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy — Gavin Edwards, 1995. ISBN 0-671-50128-3
• When a Man Loves a Walnut — Gavin Edwards, 1997. ISBN 0-684-84567-9
• He's Got the Whole World in His Pants — Gavin Edwards, 1996. ISBN 0-684-82509-0
• Deck The Halls With Buddy Holly — Gavin Edwards, 1998. ISBN 0-06-095293-8
• Chocolate Moose for Dinner — Fred Gwynne, 1988. ISBN 0-671-66741-6
• Your walrus hurt the one you love: malapropisms, mispronunciations, and linguistic cock-ups — Philip Norman, 1988. ISBN 9780333473375

External links

• Mondergreen In Hindi Movies Online
• Misheard lyrics to Christmas songs are immortalized as 'mondegreens' (from Snopes.com)
• "Mondegreens Ripped My Flesh" - columns by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll
• Man-bol lists numerous Hindi mondegreens, mainly from Bollywood movie songs
• The Archive of Funny Misheard Music Lyrics
• Am I Right - Misheard Song Lyrics, Latest Additions