[1497] in Humor
HUMOR: Mondegreens
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Tue Jun 25 10:40:44 1996
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 10:34:20 EDT
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 22:12:12 -0800
From: connie@interserve.com (Connie Kleinjans)
Subject: HUMOR: I'm not blue, I'm Mondegreen
See William Saffire's _On_Language_ for more Mondegreens, including
o I led the pigeons to the flag of the United States of America
o And to the republic for Richard Stans
o Through the night with a light from a bulb
o Shirley, good Mrs. Murphy, will follow me all the days of my life
o Our father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name.
o Lead us not to Penn Station, but deliver us from evil.
o Gladly the constipated, cross-eyed bear
=46rom: janos@netcom.com (Janos Gereben)
JON CARROLL -- I'm Not Blue, I'm Mondegreen
THIS BEING AN EVEN-NUMBERED year, I shall explain in full detail the
origin and meaning of the word ``mondegreen.'' Only this year, to add
interest, I'll do it while suspended from the wing of a 747 as it
hurtles across the continental United States.
I HOPE YOU CAN HEAR ME ABOVE ALL THIS NOISE!
Back in 1954, a writer named Sylvia Wright wrote an article for the
Atlantic. In it, she told about a song she had heard as a little girl
in England. It was a Scottish ballad called ``The Bonnie Earl of
Murray,'' and one stanza went like this:
``Ye highlands and ye lowlands/Oh where hae you been/They hae slay the
Earl of Murray/And Lady Mondegreen.''
Sylvia Wright identified with Lady Mondegreen, the faithful friend of
the Earl of Murray. She died for her liege in the approved manner of
courtly heartbreak. How romantic! How exquisite! How tragic!
It was some years later that she learned that the last two lines of
the stanza were really, ``They hae slay the Earl of Murray/And laid
him on the green.''
Thereafter, Wright used the word ``mondegreen'' to denote any
mishearing of a popular song, chant, phrase, aphorism, carol, pledge,
epigram or lyric. This space ran its first column about mondegreens 10
years ago; in the intervening decade, it's become something of a
cottage industry for me and mine, with little elves fashioning
mondegreens in the back room ceaselessly.
LOOK! DOWN THERE! IT'S THE HUDSON RIVER!
THERE ARE PATRIOTIC mondegreens, like the song sung by the little girl
who lives near Esther Torrefiel: ``Oh, beautiful, for spaceship
guys.'' That reminds me of one I've used before, from later in the
song: ``America, America, God is Chef Boyardee.''
Then there was the friend of Chandler Williams, who wondered about the
identity of Aaron, ``the guy they named the Aaron Space Museum
after.''
(The latter item inevitably suggests the issue of forgery -- how does
one know if a mondegreen is a true mistake or merely a quip created by
a rogue wit angling for ink? Sometimes one can tell, but sometimes one
is not sure, so one uses it anyway. You can ruin a good joke by too
much thinking -- you can ruin a good anything by too much thinking.)
Children are always a source of mondegreens: Douglas Greenberg and his
son were watching the beginning of ``Star Trek,'' as they do most
evenings, hearing the familiar words, ``Captain's log, star date
4003.5. We find ourselves . . .'' when the lad turned to his dad and
asked, ``Why is the captain always lost?''
A FRIEND of Alfred Wong's once informed him that ``elephants have a
gyration period of more than nine months.'' Esther Torrefiel (again!)
once read a document that alleged, ``The accident report had a Type O
on every page.''
Amy Boggs writes: ``Did you hear about the French Art War descending
on Illinois and surrounding states? I heard it on the news the other
night: `Art de Guerre is settling on the Midwest, bringing
temperatures to record lows.' ''
Another reader, name temporarily misplaced although not by her, was
driving home to Santa Rosa when she heard the subtle feminist slogan
``Granddaughters Apply.'' Repeated listenings yielded the far more
disappointing message: ``Grand Auto Supply.''
Similarly, Naomi Pearce, who works in computers, inevitably hears the
new Sears jingle as ``come see the software side of Sears.''
And Don't Print My Name of Point Richmond said that at one time he was
seriously interested in hearing more about that great archaeo-biology
discovery, the Dead Sea Squirrels.
Nina Vlanin was once visiting her husband's parents at Christmas,
nodding off on the sofa, when she heard the entire family, its voices
raised in song, advise the Virgin Mary to ``sleep in Beverly Hills.''
But it is popular music that provides us with the bulk of our most
cherished mondegreens, and that's tomorrow's column.
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Monday, June 24, 1996 =85 Page D8
=A91996 San Francisco Chronicle
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