from today's NewScan: Mondegreens

[Jan Ivarsson TransEdit]

Another "mondegreen", in French:
My regretted old friend Lazlo "Tatsy" Czigany, a Hungarian photographer who came to Paris and Montparnasse as a young man around 1920, once told me that when he was learning to speak French, he had difficulties with a word that he heard Frenchmen use all the time:

"Niacka" - "Niacka prendre la route..."

He was unable to find it in dictionaries, but one day a friend told him that it was spelled "Il n'y a qu'a" - "You just take the road..."

Jan Ivarsson

----- Original Message -----
From: "vida morkunas" <vidamorkunas at TELUS.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 5:38 PM
Subject: [ADS-L] from today's NewScan: Mondegreens


> WORTH THINKING ABOUT: MONDEGREENS AND OTHER LINGUISTIC FAUX PAS
>
>       In his recent book "A Word a Day," Anu Garg writes:
>       Face it, you have been guilty of it since early childhood. Beginning
> with the nursery rhymes you heard on the playground to the national anthem
> you recited in school to crooning with the love songs on the radio, you have
> been misinterpreting and repeating them. Now you know there is a word for it
> (mondegreen) and that you are not alone. Luckily there is no Mondegreen
> Police. No matter what your native tongue, chances are you have experienced
> mondegreens in your language.
>       Whether you consider mondegreens a case of aural dyslexia or a variant
> of Freudian slip, the results are often much more fascinating than the
> original matter. The mondegreen effect is not limited to lyrics either. More
> than one school librarian has seen distraught pupils complaining of not
> being able to locate the book mentioned in their class: Charles Darwin's
> seminal work, "Oranges and Peaches."
>       So how did we come to call this oral-cum-aural phenomenon mondegreen?
> It all started when a courageous woman named Sylvia Wright confessed to
> mishearing the following words of a Scottish folksong:
>
> They hae slain the Earl of Moray / And laid him on the green
>
> as:
>
> They hae slain the Earl Amurray / And Lady Mondegreen
>
>       Imagine Wright's disappointment when she discovered that there was no
> Lady Mondegreen who valiantly gave her life to be with her love. She wrote
> her story in the November 1954 issue of Harper's Magazine and ever since we
> have labeled these occurrences in honor of Lady Mondegreen's sacrifice. Here
> are mondegreens and a few other words about words.
>       Mondegreen (MON-di-green): noun. A word or phrase resulting from
> mishearing a word or phrase. Some examples follow. From their Pledge of
> Allegiance that begins with "I led the pigeons to the flag" to the warning
> that the school's "Super-Nintendo" ("superintendent") is coming for
> inspection, kids are one of the best sources of mondegreens.
>       No More Burnt Toast, Please! A few months ago my five-year-old son
> informed us that he thought he was "black toast intolerant" (lactose
> intolerant). -- Michael Brunelle, Charlottesville, Virginia
>       A TOYOTA. From my four-year-old son: That's not a toy ota, it's a big
> ota. -- Trina Bouvet, Sassenage, France
>       Diary, Uh! There was a little girl who wrote home from summer camp,
> explaining that she had developed "dire rear". -- Daniel F. Harrison,
> Farmington Hills, Michigan
>       Songful or Sinful? The Sunday School treat involved a trip out, much
> eating, and the singing of hymns during the return journey. The children
> happily sang, "We can sing, full though we be", rather subverting the
> original "Weak and sinful though we be". -- Peter Collingwood, Colchester,
> U.K.
>       Toes Too Have an Aroma. After returning from the podiatrist, I told my
> husband I had a neuroma (damaged nerve between the toes). My husband
> replied, "I could have told you your toes have an aroma." -- Tamara H.
> Thomas, Salt Lake City, Utah
>       Life After Death. Years ago, when my children were small and we were
> leaving for an out-of-town trip, my babysitter's father was supposed to come
> to the house to pick up the spare key for her. We had never met him before.
> Around dinner time, when the doorbell rang, I opened the door and found a
> clergyman standing there who said, "A man's dead." While I was processing
> this, I gave him, I'm sure, one of my blankest "what are you talking about"
> looks. He repeated himself. When it dawned on me, I was embarrassed and went
> to get him the key. What he had actually said was "I'm Anne's dad." -- Susan
> Frank, Rockledge, Florida
>       Heron, My Love.  Television and radio commercials are wonderful
> providers of mondegreens. My particular favorite was a vacuum cleaner that
> promised to pick up all of my "pet heron dirt." As an avid birdwatcher, I
> would love to have a Great Blue Heron as a pet, but I imagine they do make a
> horrible mess. However, after listening more closely, however, I learned
> that this sweeper actually picks up "pet hair and dirt". Alas, no pet heron
> for me. -- Barbara Kirby, Dallas, Texas
>       The Taste of Ultimate Convenience. Of course, there's always the
> company that offers "the ultimate inconvenience". I've heard this in radio
> ads not once, but twice! -Vicki Blier, Lexington, Massachusetts"
>                                     ...
> See http://shorl.com/dasugajisyjy for Anu and Suti Garg's "A Word a Day"--
> or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our
> book recommendations to literacy action programs.)
>