In case you don't know, a mondegreen is when a listener puts the wrong words to what they hear. The term mondegreen was coined in 1954 by Sylvia Wright, whose mother used to read her an old ballad:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl Amurray, And Lady Mondegreen.
Who was this mysterious Lady Mondegreen? Sylvia Wright had a vivid mental picture of her and her sad end.
But the was no such person; the last line is actually:
And laid him on the green.
And from Wright's article the word mondegreen made it into our language and can now be found in the OED.
I've posted about modegreens before, they fascinate me , and this morning I came across a nice example. Someone said:
"I think I'm overdosing on drinking tea."
Makes sense I thought, we all know too much caffeine can be bad for you.
Mondegreen Hearing
In case you don't know, a mondegreen is when a listener puts the wrong words to what they hear. The term mondegreen was coined in 1954 by Sylvia Wright, whose mother used to read her an old ballad:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray,
And Lady Mondegreen.
Who was this mysterious Lady Mondegreen? Sylvia Wright had a vivid mental picture of her and her sad end.
But the was no such person; the last line is actually:
And laid him on the green.
And from Wright's article the word mondegreen made it into our language and can now be found in the OED.
I've posted about modegreens before, they fascinate me , and this morning I came across a nice example. Someone said:
"I think I'm overdosing on drinking tea."
Makes sense I thought, we all know too much caffeine can be bad for you.
But what they'd actually said was:
"I think I'm overdosing on Vitamin C."
But they weren't, it's OK.