MONDEGREEN

We often come across people who mishear certain words or phrases especially from song lyrics or movie dialogues. To make matters worse, they confidently repeat the wrongly heard words to other people who then convey these malapropisms to others. This never ending repetition of wrongly heard phrases can be quite funny and humiliating at times too especially if you are corrected in front of the public. This condition, called 'mondegreen' is not exclusive to non-native speakers of English only but also to native speakers. One perfect example of 'mondegreen' can be seen in the movie '27 Dresses' starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden (did I write earlier how I simply love love stories?). Both of them (definitely feeling the buzz after a few beers) step on top of the bar counter and start singing 'Bennie And The Jets'. I think that scene is one of the most hilarious parts in the movie and I couldn't stop rolling on the floor when I first heard their rendition of that song (especially that 'electric boobs' part). I remember when I was still in primary school, I would often sit by the radio to write down the lyrics of popular songs in my notebook. One particular song that I remember listening to was 'One Way Ticket' by Eruption. Disco was all the rage back then and as little as I was at that time, I wasn't spared from its influence (that was how I learned English and how to boogie by the way). It wasn't until I was in high school when I discovered that I had been singing the wrong lyrics all along. Confidently, I would chant 'one way ticket to the moon' instead of 'one way ticket to the blues' each and every time the song came on the radio. Fortunately, nobody seemed to notice my 'mondegreen'. The word 'blues' and its exact meaning had not registered in my mind back then and the word 'moon' seemed much more appropriate to me. I also remember a cartoon strip published in 'The Kampung Boy' by Malaysia's most famous cartoonist, Lat. He reminisced about his younger days when he and his friends entered a singing competition crooning Elvis Presley's Devil In Disguise and changed the lyrics to 'devil in the sky'. I'm sure everybody has his or her own story of mondegreen and one of my naughty friends purposely changed the lyrics of Tina Turner's Private Dancer from 'have a husband and some children' to 'have some husbands and some children'. And talking about naughty, I'm sure you have heard the joke about how the planet 'Uranus' got its name...