I recently learned an amazing word for a very common experience – since a word already exists for this experience, I was unable to create a word for it and add it to my Dictionary of Liff.1 According to Wikipedia:
“A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning.”2
I first learned the word from The Language Perfectionist column by Don Hauptman published in the Early To Rise Newsletter.3 Here are a couple examples shared by Hauptman:
- “There’s a bathroom on the right” for “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
- ‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” for “‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky.” (Jimi Hendrix)
You can find other examples on the Wikipedia mondegreen page.
QUESTION: What neat new word have you learned lately? Please share in the comments section of this post.
Notes
- Please note that I plan to do a major overhaul of the Dictionary of Liff website over the next year or so. (The aim of the site is to help eliminate the liffs of the world by defining words to describe these common objects or experiences for which previously no words yet existed).
- Mondegreen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen Accessed March 15, 2010.
- “The Language Perfectionist: “Say What?!” Funny Misunderstandings” by Don Hauptman http://www.earlytorise.com/2010/03/05/the-language-perfectionist-say-what-funny-misunderstandings.html Accessed March 15, 2010.
