To the left is Lady Mondegreen, who does not exist. Her Ladyship corrects us with the original words that were misheard as her name and brought her into existence as explained below. Click on the picture for the larger view.
American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in her essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen," published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954.
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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:
How this all came about is that last night I posted on Facebook the video below, 'Bad Moon Rising' by Creedence Clearwater Revival, with the headling, 'DON'T GO AROUND TONIGHT!' My friend PJ was the first to comment with, "Theeeere's a bathroom on the right!" (Somebody had to say it.) Yes, somebody surely had to say it. My other friend susan s., would have said it if she had commented first (but she didn't).The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". Wright explained the need for a new term:
- Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
- Oh, where hae ye been?
- They hae slain the Earl O' Moray,
- And Lady Mondegreen.
- 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.
Then I mentioned my memory of my first Mondegreen, which is from the 'Hail Mary', 'Blessed art thou amongst swimmin', and blessed is the fruit of thy wound, Jesus.'
Then Padre Mickey chimed in with his, "Bringing in the Sheets".
If you care to leave your personal Mondegreens in a comment, your favorite misunderstandings from your own experience, well, I'd really like that.
How cute!! Personally, I know I had many, but cannot for the life of me remember them at the moment! (Of course!)
ReplyDeleteCiss B, I'm sorry you can't remember your Mondegreens. The two from the 'Hail Mary' are the only ones I could remember.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Blogger's new format for posting. It was ages before I could get this post formatted properly.
Difficult to recall specifics, but they do have a tendency to refer to hymns. Victorian hymns, learned by rote, & four-year-olds did not always relate well, even sixty years ago. Keble's "New every morning is the love", learned at the age of four, is full of hard-to-grasp stuff. Still remember wondering, re "Room to deny ourselves, a road To bring us daily nearer God" why we should deny ourselves a road to bring us daily nearer God. Didn't seem quite Christian.
ReplyDeleteLots of learning by rote: prayers, hymns, and 8 years of the Catechism, with the answers longer and the books fatter as we went to the higher grades. I remember a thin blue book, a thicker red book, and a fat green book. At least, we could read the Catechisms, so we were spared the Mondegreens.
ReplyDeleteOur Father, who arts in heaven....
ReplyDeletemargaret, in a way you were right, for I believe the Father arts in heaven.
ReplyDeleteAmazed that no one has posted "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear."
ReplyDeleteMurdoch, that one's so commonly known it's in the Wiki article. Don't you have a Mondegreen of your own?
ReplyDelete"sleep in heavenly peas"
ReplyDeleteI was always mishearing TV themes of my wild&misspent youth. For example, Gilligan's Island: "It's enough to fly" (MUCH later, correctly heard "It's an uphill climb"
Yes! That wasn't one of mine, but I just remembered it belonged to one of my friends.
ReplyDeleteWell there is the famous line from Jimi Hendrix (wasn't it?) "Excuse me while I kiss this guy." (Actually "Excuse me while I kiss the sky.")
ReplyDeleteOr the woman who moved to New York and started using the local saying "it cost a nominal egg" only to realize it was actually an accented "it cost an arm and a leg"
Then there is this comedy sketch on this very subject:
http://youtu.be/U9_3nQFNy-w
Makcolm the Jimi Hendrix Mondegreen was in Wiki, but I hadn't heard the other.
ReplyDeleteWhen my daughter moved to New Orleans and spoke in her Cajun accent of eating 'balled crawfish', her friend said, 'What are balled crawfish? She meant boiled crawfish. Of course, there are crawfish balls, but that's another dish entirely.
The video is funny. Here's a clickable link.
ReplyDeleteMine is the "Lamp is the light of the city of God." I know I was an adult before I saw the words written and discovered it was really "Lamb." "lamp" seems more apt, still.
ReplyDeleteAmelia, and why not? The"Lamp is the light of the city of God" makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother in early days of parochial school (she was 7 or 8):
ReplyDeleteHail Mary, full of grapes....
Ah yes, that's a good one, DioFW. For Roman Catholic kids, the 'Hail Mary' offered many opportunities for Mondegreens.
ReplyDelete