Bruce,
You may be on to something. I haven’t
seen a psychological analysis of mondegreens, but the thought raises
interesting possibilities. There are a few exceptions that I found in the
Wikipedia entry, for example, “Scuse me while I kiss this guy,”
from Jimi Henrix’ Purple Haze line “Scuse me while I kiss the sky.”
Although even there “this guy” could be your phantom individual. The
following, though, also from the Wiki entry, involves an adjective:
Jon Carroll’s
web site http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/mondegreens.shtml
has lots of examples and some funny columns for anyone who’d like to look
into mondegreens further.
Herb
From:
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010
8:42 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Understanding Plain
English
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:
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
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:
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:
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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