Of Mondegreens & Marshmallow Peeps

From Susan/Miranda:

We usually speak of significant words on this blog: emotional, educational, historical, twenty-five-dollar words, words that can make or break both your current masterpiece-in-progress and commuter-escape-read, as well as plump up SAT scores.

But words can be silly, too, and that’s where I’m going today.

I recently ordered the full eleven-volume set of 17th century Englishman Samuel Pepys’s complete unedited diaries from an internet used-book-seller.  When the UPS man thumped on the door, I gleefully (yeah, I know, I know, Nerd-o-rama) announced that my fifteen pounds of Pepys had finally arrived. At once my teenaged daughter appeared to watch over my shoulder as I slit open the large box.   

“Oh, Mom,” she said with disgust.  “It’s just more books.”

. . . . and not, as she’d hoped, fifteen glorious pounds of glistening, sugary, neon-yellow Marshmallow Peeps.  (For more about Samuel, see my Twelfth Night blog from last week; for more about the marshmallow kind, well, just wait another week or two, when the Easter candy appears in the stores. )

Hearing Peeps for Pepys is a mondegreen.  Like malaprops, mondegreens are word-gaffes based on misunderstandings, a lyric, word, or expression heard incorrectly with often hilarious results.  I’ve only learned of the term this week, thanks to Susan/Sarah (yes, THIS is the sort of nonsense writers discuss among themselves!) though of course I’ve been aware of the effect for years –– as has anyone who thinks the last line of “Silent Night” is “sleep in heavenly peas,” or that two-liter bottles of Coke are the “cheerleader” size, or that modern life makes for a “doggy-dog world” rather than a “dog eat dog” one, or that the American national anthem is an early example of multiculturalism: “Jose, can you see…”

The word “mondegreen” is in itself an example.  In a 1954 essay in Harper’s Magazine, writer Sylvia Wright coined the term based on her own experience:

“When I was a child,  my mother used to read aloud to me [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 Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.”

The actual last line is “And laid him on the green” –- reason enough for Wright to say of future mishearings, “I shall hereafter call them mondegreens.”  The name has stuck in popular culture, if not yet in formal dictionaries of grammar.

Many of the most famous mondegreens seem to come from music lyrics. Currently there’s a TV ad that features a couple of nimrods downloading the Clash’s 80s hit “Rock the Kasbah” as “Stop the Catbox.” Yet how many of us really believed the words to the old Credence Clearwater song weren’t “There’s a bad moon out tonight”, but “There’s a bathroom on the right”?  Or that the gospel classic is “He’s Got the Whole World in His Pants"? And my personal favorite: the Elton John song “Tiny Dancer” morphing into “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.”

Closed-captioning on TV has also provided a lush new source for mondegreens.  San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll has made a cause-celebre of recording these and other mondegreens (His site is called "Mondegreens Ripped My Flesh": http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/mondegreens.shtml)  A few choice ones include a “meteorologist” who somehow became a “meaty urologist”.  During a broadcast of the Olympics, one team was converted from “Hungarian swimmers” to “Hung Aryan swimmers.”  And of course there’s the best-selling memoir “My Sergei”, aka “Mice Are Gay.”

So now it’s your turn.  It’s Monday: what else do you have to do, anyway? Any and all examples are welcome!

Comments

[Maggie]

Not sure this qualifies, but...
When I was a little girl growing up on Long Island, there was a deli around the corner that had a sign, "No beer sold to minors." I simply couldn't understand their prejudice towards miners, not that I was aware where the coal mine in suburbia was anyhow.

And guerilla warfare? Yup. I pictured trained monkeys.

[maryjoputney]

Susan, these are HYSTERICAL! A good start to the week on a really gray and gloomy Monday. (Global warming is here, and I think we have England's weather....)

Mary Jo

[shscott21]

Maggie, I think those qualify! I particularly like the trained monkeys. *GGG*

I'm sure that "kid goofs" probably make up a great many mondegreens. When I was little, I was always getting confused in church by the early 17th century King James-era language used in services back then. For the longest time, I thought that "hallowed be thy name" was really "Holloway be thy name" -- a personal little shout-out to my own family.

[Nina P]

What fun! I've learned a new word... mondegreens. Here are a few more in the kid goof category.

Here's a lyric from an old hymn I often sang in church. "When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there." As a little kid, I often wondered what God was doing to the rolls to make them so good that we had to sing about them.

Here's another... "Bringing in the sheaves." This one turned into "Bring in the sheets." God must certainly appreciate clean linens hung out in the air to dry, I surmised, as the next line went... "and we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheets."

[Kimber]

Don't forget the old song, "Mairsie Doats," which only makes sense if you sing it out loud.

Mairsie doats and dozie doats and little lambsie divey
A kiddledy divey too, wouldn't you?

[susanna in alabama]

As a child, I thought the middle of the alphabet had a letter with a realllly long name: Eleminopee.

My hometown newspaper once had an advertisement for a new eye doctor in town, named "Optha L. Mologist". At least according to the person doing the advertisement paste up.

My favorite hymn growing up was "Higher Ground", where God would help us reach a "higher table land". Yes, I saw a table in my mind, and me like Alice in Wonderland standing beside a table leg many times my height. Or (after God did his part) meandering around on a great wooden plain, wondering what one did once one got to the table land.

[Kathy Kremer]

Having just gone through the Christmas season, I was reminded about wondering as child what a "holy infantso" was, as well as a "round john virgin". The "holy parakeet" (instead of paraclete) was something that kids heard about in the 50s and 60s. I guess when there are technical words not common in everyday usage, the brain tries to fill in with something more familiar. As for the misunderstanding of pop songs, that's because they have dreadful diction (for the most part).

[Susan Wilbanks]

'Here's another... "Bringing in the sheaves." This one turned into "Bring in the sheets."'

At various points I confused that one with "Bringing in the cheese" or "Bringing in the sheep." Because both made sense with a harvest them, y'know?

[Kalen Hughes]

Oh, so funny! Thank you. I'm now ready for Easter (and our annual peeps hunt; in involves bebe guns and a strict rule of being forced to eat what you kill).

[margaret]

A favourite in our household:

From the Paul Young Song,

"Every time you Go Away...

You take a piece of Meat with you."

My chap was a Top-40 radio dj for a portion of his pre-MEP career. He, like many in that field, collected mondegreens. Which is why Bruce Springsteen's "10th Avenue Freeze Out" is to us forever known as "Ten Devils in the Freezer."

I'll definitely check out that website...sounds fun.

[Jo Beverley]

Wonderful, Susan.

I really boggle at the 15 lbs of Peeps,though. What would that be in cubic feet?????

Someone of a mathematical inclination can doubtless work it out.

Jo :)

[Susan Sarah]

Funny post!

One memory for me is when an English teacher walked into our class, wrote "Jeet? Wajeet?" on the blackboard, and then waited for us to get it. Oh! yeah! "Did you eat, what did you eat?"

She was trying to point out to us our terrible diction. We just thought it was hilarious, and for the rest of the year, it was Jeet, Jeet, every day.

Susan Sarah

[melissab]

Peeps, I love Peeps! (Especially stale ones.)

My daughter, age 3, has been singing "Jingle Cows" (in lieu of "Jingle Bells") all holiday season. I can't bear to correct her--she belts it out with such enthusiasm. : )

[shscott21]

Let's see...we're bringing in the sheep/sheets, and taking away a piece of meat, all the while singing jingle cows, with our mouths full of marshmallow peeps.

And yes -- I can't BEGIN to imagine how big a box it would take to hold fifteen pounds o' peeps. They seem like they're nothing but air. Maybe, oh, say, the same cubic volume as the Great Pyramid of Cheops? (shades of really bad school projects....the Parthenon in sugar cubes, the volcano with jellow lava, Barbie & Ken in authentic togas, and the Great Pyramid from Peeps!!!)

[shscott21]

Susan, our local convenience chain store (the Wawa Food Mart) uses "Jeet?" as a slogan on posters -- it's supposed to inspire you to come charging in for 64 oz Slurpees, meatball hoagies, and cheese fries, I guess. Here where Philadelphia is shortened to Fluffya, "jeet?" makes perfect sense. *g*

[shscott21]

... and NOT ONE of you has commented on the absolutely perfect juxtaposition of Peep-sian yellow with the color of Tony Danza's sweater.

Google is a rare & wondrous thing...

[Nicole]

My sister always used to say Feliz Navidad as "Police nab a dog" when she was little.

[Susan Sarah]

Susan!!
I love it that you found a picture of yellow peeps AND Tony Danza in a peepalicious yellow sweatshirt!!

It was Meant To Be. *g*

Susan Sarah

[Blue Angel]

I pledged allegiance to the flag, one nation invisible for years.

[Susan Wilbanks]

When I was 5 or 6, I used to pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the republic for Richard Stands. Who Richard Stands was and why he had his own republic, I had no idea.

"Susan, our local convenience chain store (the Wawa Food Mart) uses "Jeet?" as a slogan on posters"

Wawa! I used to get my breakfast muffin there every day. (I went to college in Philly and stuck around for four years after graduation.)

[Sherrie Holmes]

From Sherrie:
Oh, mondegreens!!! One of my favorite topics. As a kid I thought the line in "Joy to the World" was "and heaven and an ANGELS (not nature) sing." It was logical that angels and heaven went together.

Many years ago I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert and the next day I was gushing to my boss about how he had sung the great Huey Lewis and the News song, "I Want a New Truck." My boss, between fits of laughter, said the song was actually "I Want a New DRUG."

Oh.

[Edith]

My Susie had so many Mondegreens we called them "Susies."
My fav was when we were driving through the Berkshires trying to get to a concert at Tanglewood, and it started raining.
I said," Wow, it's raining in earnest."
And from the back seat, a little voice piped up, "Oh! I hope it's not raining in Tanglewood!"

[helen]

My dad tells a story of a little girl who was given a teddy bear whose eyes were sewn a little too close together.
She named him Gladly because of the hymn "Gladly the cross I'd bear"