Mondegreen

From Free net encyclopedia

A mondegreen (also sometimes spelled "mondagreen") is the mishearing (usually accidental) of a phrase, such that it acquires a new meaning.

The word "mondegreen" is itself a mondegreen. The American writer Sylvia Wright coined it in an essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen", which was published in Harper's Magazine in Nov. 1954. She wrote:

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

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]

And Lady Mondegreen.

The actual line is "And laid him on the green", from the anonymous 17th century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray". Wright gives other examples of what she says "I shall hereafter call mondegreens", such as:

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")

The columnist Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle has long been a popularizer of the term and a collector of mondegreens. He may have been the chief link between Wright's work and the general popularity of the notion today.

While mondegreens are a common occurrence for children, many adults have their own collection, particularly with regard to popular music.

An especially notorious example of a mondegreen is The Kingsmen's recording of "Louie, Louie". Though it was a cover of a benign Richard Berry tune, this version was thought first incomprehensible, then obscene, due either to poor enunciation, poor acoustics, or poor mixing. Many young people did indeed write and circulate sets of obscene alternate lyrics, and parents, also finding the song unintelligible, assumed these to be correct. This prompted an FBI investigation; and the song was quickly banned in Indiana.

A popular joke has a child being asked what God's first name is, and he replies, "Andy." He gets this name from the hymn In The Garden (a.k.a. "I Come To The Garden Alone": "Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own..." as opposed to, "And he walks with me..."

Billy Connolly described several mondegreens he sang in church as a child:

We will be tootle-ootle den ("We will be true to thee till death" from Faith of our fathers)
A wean in a manger ("Away in a Manger" using the Scottish word for a baby)

Quite a few mondegreens may be seen in captioned live television broadcasting of impromptu speeches, interviews, etc. (one local news report of a "grand parade" was captioned as a "Grandpa raid").

Some mondegreens arise from false friends. A phrase in one language may be misheard as a semi-sensical phrase in another language. The humorous aspect of these has given rise to a music video genre known as animutation, in which music in a different language (typically Japanese) is "misheard" into English, and illustrated. Engrish mondegreens can occur when English lyrics are reproduced by foreign language singers. A notable example is the ending sequence to the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion where the song Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra inadvertently became "Fry Me To The Moon" when performed by a Japanese artist.

This may happen in the opposite direction as well: i.e., English words of a song are misheard, intentionally or not, to mean something in a native language, often with a humorous effect. An example is a Russian joke in which the song "Can't Buy Me Love" was announced as "кинь бабе лом" IPA (Template:IPA) which roughly translates as "Throw a bar to the woman".

Mondegreen is also a segment on the popular Australian music quiz show Spicks and Specks (ABC TV).

[edit]

Examples

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")
'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")
You and me and Leslie (from Groovin' by The Rascals — "You and me endlessly")
Jose can you see, by the dawn's early light? (the first line of the US national anthem - "Oh, say can you see")
O Canada, our home's on native land (from the Canadian national anthem - "O Canada, our home and native land")
Ain't no woman like the one-eyed Gott (from The Four Tops's song - "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)")
The girl with colitis goes by (from a lyric in the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", by The Beatles - "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes.")
It is hard to wreck a nice beach (from a story, perhaps apocryphal, about one of the earliest speech recognition programs being presented, at a demo, with someone saying "It's hard to recognize speech" and producing that phrase as the output; regardless of the truth of this story, this mondegreen was used on a t-shirt given to Apple engineers who worked on the company's early speech-recognition software [1])
Play that fucking music right boy (from the Wild Cherry song Play that funky music [white boy])
It's a hard egg (from It's A Heartache by Bonnie Tyler)
Bullshit! (from Push It by Salt-N-Pepa)
My lover's got no money, he's a goddess from Belize (mishearing of he's got his strong beliefs in Free from Desire by Gala Rizzatto)
Donuts make my brown eyes blue (from Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue, by Crystal Gayle)
45 virgins and a pelican instead of Glorified version of a pellet-gun (from Glorified G, by Pearl Jam)
The visit of the Chinese President, who's in town (from a mishearing of Hu Jintao)
Eatin' trifles instead of "Eton Rifles" by The Jam
You take a piece of meat with you instead of "you take a piece of me with you" (from "Everytime you go away" by Paul Young).
When the going gets stuffed instead of When the going gets tough by Billy Ocean
... Harold (or Howard) be thy name... (from the Lord's Prayer - "... hallowed be thy name ...") [in Wright 1957]
... and lead us not into Penn Station ... (from the Lord's Prayer - "... and lead us not into temptation ...")
... give us this steak and jelly bread, and forgive us our mattresses... (from "...give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses...")
... blessed art thou, a monk swimming ... (from the Hail Mary phrase "... blessed art thou amongst women ...". Also the title of a Malachy McCourt memoir.)
... Gladly, the cross-eyed bear... (from the 1894 hymn "Keep Thou My Way", words by Francis Crosby - "Gladly, the cross I'd bear...") [in Wright 1957]
I am the Lord of the Dance settee ("I am the Lord of the Dance said he...")
Lettuce with a gladsome mind ... ("Let us with a gladsome mind ...")
The piece of cod which passeth all understanding ("The peace of God which passeth all understanding")
Olive, the Other Reindeer ...' (from the song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: "... All of the other reindeer ...") This mondegreen has become the title of a children's book, which was later made into an animated holiday program featuring the voice of Drew Barrymore.
Barney's the king of Israel... (This mondegreen was featured on the comic One Big Happy, and comes from The First Noel, with "Born is the king of Israel")
How long is a bay in China? ("Hao Long is a bay in China")
Round John Virgin ("Round yon virgin mother and child", from "Silent Night") [in Wright 1957]
Asia Vampires ("Age of Empires")

[edit]

Publications

Sylvia Wright, Get Away From Me With Those Christmas Gifts. McGraw Hill, 1957. Contains the essays "The Death of Lady Mondegreen" and "The Quest of Lady Mondegreen".
Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy - Gavin Edwards, 1995. ISBN 0671501283
When a Man Loves a Walnut - Gavin Edwards, 1997. ISBN 0684845679

[edit]