Lessons learned
Mondegreens
The term may be unfamiliar, but they're something
we all know . . .
JACK
RUNNINGER, O.D.
When
I peruse the pages of each Optometric Management issue, I become envious of how
much more scholarly and knowledgeable are all the other authors than am I. In a
desperate attempt to catch up with their erudition, I shall herein discuss a term
I'll bet is unfamiliar to most of them. The term to which I refer is "Mondegreens,"
by definition "a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric."
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ILLUSTRATION BY AMY WUMMER |
Most
frequent
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll
collects Mondegreens. According to him, three of the most often submitted entries
are:
1.
"Gladly, the cross-eyed bear," (known in the real world as that old hymn, "Gladly
The Cross I'd Bear.")
2. From the Jimi Hendrix
song "Purple Haze," the line "Excuse me while I kiss the sky," is often heard as
"Excuse me while I kiss this guy." Mr. Hendrix was himself aware that he had been
Mondegreened, and would occasionally, in performance, actually kiss a guy after
saying that line.
3. Best illustrated by the story of
the child in Sunday School who drew a picture of a chubby child. When asked the
name of the child in the picture, he replied, "Round John Virgin," a figure also
found in "Silent Night."
Best be careful
Mondegreens are another example of how easy it
is to miscommunicate if you're not careful. They demonstrate the necessity of stating
things clearly in speaking with staff and patients, particularly children.
The word "Mondegreen" was coined
by writer Sylvia Wright. As a child she had heard the Scottish ballad, "The Bonny
Earl of Murray," and had believed that 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
Poor Lady Mondegreen, thought Sylvia
Wright. A tragic heroine dying with her liege; how poetic. Some years later she
discovered that the last two lines of the stanza instead were:
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And laid him on the green.
Sylvia was so distraught by the sudden
disappearance of her heroine that she memorialized her with a neologism.
The majority of Mondegreens come from
song lyrics. You may remember that touching moment in "I'm In The Mood For Love,"
when the singer reveals his favorite nickname for his beloved?
I'm in the mood for love,
Simply because you're near me,
Funny Butt, when you're near me . .
.
Books
too
Mondegreens even extend to book titles.
A Monk
Swimming is the title of a book by Malachy McCourt. When he was a lad growing up
in Ireland in the Catholic Church, when reciting "Hail Mary, full of grace. The
Lord is with Thee. Blessed are Thou amongst women," McCourt always heard, "amongst
women" as instead, "a monk swimming."
Another of his books is titled Harold
Be Thy Name, the phrase from the Lord's Prayer which had early established for him
God's first name.
JACK RUNNINGER,
OUR CONSULTING EDITOR, LIVES IN ROME, GA. HE'S
ALSO A PAST EDITOR OF OM. CONTACT HIM AT RUNNINGERJ@AOL.COM
Optometric Management, Issue: September 2005