Thursday, August 9, 2007

Potato Wave

A while ago I was stumbling around the Mental Floss website, when I came across this blog on mondegreens.

What is a mondegreen? Well, according to Wikipedia, "A mondegreen is the mishearing (usually accidental) of a phrase as a homophone or near-homophone in such a way that it acquires a new meaning." I don't know if you're familiar with the story of the minister's son who was overheard by his father while conducting a funeral service for his dead bird. The son concluded the service with "These things I pray unto the Father, unto the Son, and into the hole he goes!" This is a mondegreen.

According to the wikipedia article, the term was first coined by author Sylvia Wright. It is derived from a misheard line of The Bonnie Earl of Murray. Write's mother had read the ballad aloud to her as a child, and she misheard the last line of the second stanza.

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]
And Lady Mondegreen.

The correct last line is: And laid him on the green.
I'd like to sign out with the same youtube video used on the mental floss blog, which is a rewrite of Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter." I hope you enjoy it.

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