OK, and this is how grammar can get you
into trouble. I just spent the last half hour reading mondegreens rather than
working. By the way, there are many hits for “lead On, O Kinky Turtle”
in Google.
Janet
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010
9:09 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Understanding Plain
English
Herb,
You have me puzzled and deeply curious What's the original
for the kinky turtle?
Craig
STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
When I read your first message, my mental
editing function was switched off, and I read “humor is” as
“humorist.” I didn’t even notice the error (mine) at
first. It’s an interesting case of a mondegreen, the mind making
sense of something that otherwise doesn’t. On ADS-L in the last
couple of days the example “disaster’s own surgeon” came up
as an aural understanding of spoken “disaster zone surgeon.”
My favorite mondegreen is the hymn title “Lead on, O Kinky Turtle.”
What makes “humor is” > “humorist” interesting is
that it makes sense of something that is in fact an error, rather than the
usual case of simply reanalyzing a well-formed string.
For others on the list who may not have
run into mondegreens, the term comes from a passage that I quote from the Wikipedia
entry:
The
American writer Sylvia Wright
coined the term mondegreen in her essay "The
Death of Lady Mondegreen," which was published in Harper's Magazine
in November 1954.[3] In the essay, Wright described how, as a
young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the
17th-century ballad "The Bonnie Earl O'
Murray." 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:
Ye Highlands and ye
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl
O'
And
Lady Mondegreen.
The
actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". As Wright
explained the need for a new term, "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".
I can’t say that my misreading was
better than the original.
Herb
From: Assembly
for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of MARLOW, DAVID
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010
9:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Understanding Plain
English
Caught my own typo...
humor is employs
My apologies for not proofing better - particularly
when submitting to a listserv of grammarians!
D
From: Assembly
for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of MARLOW, DAVID [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010
9:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Understanding Plain
English
Robert
said:
<You are absolutely right that the joke is
racist; however, the humor is based on an interesting aspect of grammar that
Haj Ross called sloppy identity.>
I’d suggest the humor is employs sloppy identity, but is based on racism
& sexism…
If we changed the original joke to avoid racist & sexist comments, it
wouldn’t get repeated much …
< Bob Smith calls his boss and says,
'Sir, I will not be coming to work today. I’m unwell and experiencing a
headache, stomach ache and have pain in my legs. I will not be able to report
to work today.’
The boss replies, 'You know something, Bob,
I really need you today. When I feel sick like you do, I go to my wife and
suggest we have breakfast at the café down the street. That makes everything
better and I go to work. You try that.'
Two hours later Bob calls again. 'I took
your advice and I feel great. I’ll be at work soon. The café has great
food and your wife is a wonderful conversationalist.>
If we, as teachers and students of grammar, ignore the semantics behind our
words & focus only on the syntax binding them together, we do our
constituency a disservice and reinforce traditional and harmful social trends.
Respectfully,
Dave
David
W. Marlow, Ph.D.
Assistant
Professor of Linguistics and ESOL
Vice President/President Elect -
Founder:
864.503.5849
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