Mondegreens.
A mondegreen is a misheard lyric, saying, catchphrase, or slogan. The word was coined by the Scottish writer Sylvia Wright in a 1954 article in Harper’s Magazine. There she wrote that, as a child, she had misinterpreted the lyrics of a Scottish ballad called “The Bonny Early of Moray.” One of the lines in the song is this: “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and laid him on the green.” She had thought it went, “They hae slain the Earl of o’ Moray and Lady Mondegreen.”
Indeed, many mondegreens are essentially children’s misinterpretations. Consider the examples just from the Christmas season. A child sings “Silent Night” in this way: “Holy imbecile, tender and mild.” Of course, the actual words are “Holy infant, so tender and mild.” In the same song, “Christ the sailor is born” is a mangled version of “Christ, the Savior is born.” […]
Many mondegreens occur in transcribed speech. A secretary or court reporter doesn’t quite hear the words and comes up with a plausible guess. “Attorney and notary public: becomes “attorney and not a republic.” “County surveyor” becomes “Countess of Ayr.” “Juxtaposition” becomes “jock strap position”
Perhaps the most interesting of all, though, are those that result from listening to songs. Often the lyrics aren’t readily available to listeners, and often the lyrics are sung a little indistinctly. So listeners create their own plausible versions, some of which in sheer creativity rival the originals.
This gloriously square entry from Garner’s Modern American Usage is a cipher for The Mondegreen, which is about evocation through ambiguity and simultaneously valid readings of past and current events.
