Interesting discussion… provides a conclusive Q.E.D. that we O.C.D. grammarians are not dry, desiccated dodos, as some would dub (and then drub) us!

 

As someone who’s third-generation kama’aina ha’ole wahine (long-time in Hawai’i family, white chick J) from Hawai’i, where my rainbow-hued extended family and friends all love dreadfully un-p.c. jokes about every conceivable ethnic group (and we have ‘em all in Aloha Land, and lots of ‘em in our own families), our favorite local comedian was and is Frank Delima, who was the original, equal-opportunity disser of everyone, no matter race, creed, color or sex.

 

http://frankdelima.com 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0m_Kw1DAYE

http://www.lala.com/#artist/Frank_Delima

http://transitionhawaii.com/images/content/community/around_the_island/features/frank_de_lima/frank_delima.jpg

 

My family also lived from 1954-1960 in Singapore, and 1960-1977 in Kingston, Jamaica, where I learned lots of un-p.c. Jamaican jokes. Here’s one a Jamaican friend sent me last week (“Fool-fool” is a self-explanatory Jamaican expression) I know it’s recycled, but I still enjoy it!

Fool-fool Jamaican

So....this Jamaican guy is at the Gates of Heaven…

St Peter: I have to ask you 3 questions before I can let you in.

Jamaican:          No problem

St Peter:   Which days of the week begin with the letter T?

Jamaican:          Tidday and tommarro

St. Peter:    Well, that wasn't really the answer I was looking for but I'll give you the second question.  How many seconds are there in a year?

Jamaican:          12

St. Peter:          How did you arrive at 12?

Jamaican:          2nd of January, 2nd of Feb, 2nd of ....

By now St. Peter is getting exasperated with this fool-fool Jamaican.

St. Peter:          Final question now.  What is the name of our Lord and Saviour?

Jamaican:          Andy

St. Peter:          Good God man, don't you read your Bible?

Jamaican:          Yes, but everytime mi guh a church dem sing:
                                "Andy walks with me,
                                Andy talks with me,
                                Andy tells me that I am his own..."

 

 

Much aloha from Hawai’i via rural Arizona to all my fellow grammar geeks!

 

Tina

 

 

 

 

    Of course, it's King eternal. Shoulda had it.

Craig

Castilleja, Janet wrote:

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

 

 

Herb,
    You have me puzzled and deeply curious What's the original for the kinky turtle?
Craig

STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:

Dave,

 

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 Lowlands,

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl O' Murray,

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

 

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