It seems like the common feature of the mondegreens mentioned is that they involve a phantom individual -- someone who exists only in the mind of the interpreter and never intended by the author.  Is this a coincidence or is this feature essential?  Are there examples of other such misinterpretations that do not involve imaginary creatures? 
 
Bruce
On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 7:22 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Lead on, O King Eternal

 

Herb

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 12:09 PM


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:

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

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 - Carolina TESOL
Founder: South Carolina Language & Life Project

University of South Carolina – Upstate
800 University Way
Spartanburg, SC 29303
864.503.5849


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