![]() As these examples indicate, where the lyrics come unstuck it’s a fair chance that the culprit is a quasi-hononym.Ĭoining of Mondegreen: the word (but not the act) originated in 1954 with American writer Sylvia Wright…as a girl listening to her mother readIng a 18th century romantic poem she erroneously heard “Lady Mondegreen” instead of the actual lyric, “layd him on the green”. Two more classic confusions warranting honourable mention are The Beatles’ “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes” transformed by an erring ear into “The girl with colitis goes by” (from “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”) and Johnny Nash’s “I can see clearly now, the rain has gone”, reinterpreted as “I can see clearly now, Lorraine has gone”. Given the associated factors of diction and high volume noise, Mondegreenisms in modern pop music are legion, one of the most iconic is the misinterpretation by untold number of listeners of Jimi Hendrix’s line, “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” (“Purple Haze”) as “Excuse me while I kiss the guy“. I can hear the ranks of the slightly incredulous intoning “I didn’t know there was a word for that!” Hendrix “excuse me…” A Mondegreen is where you mishear or misinterpret a phrase-especially a song lyric but it could also be a line from a poem-with the result that you give it a new and different meaning. If the ABC conducted a vox-pop in Martin Place “Mondegreen” would likely draw a blank, however the concept itself is a different story…anyone exposed to popular music would have at some point either unknowingly committed a Mondegreen or observed someone else in the act. Would the latte-sipping, smashed avocado inner city set recognise a Mondegreen, Mumpsimus or Eggcorn when they see one? Probably not, these three linguistic odd fellows are the domain of dedicated language buffs and word nerds. One of the most referenced examples is “you have hissed my mystery lecture”, instead of “you have missed my history lecture”. Spoonerisms are another type of verbal misstep where the speaker makes a “slip of the tongue”, accidentally transposing the initial consonants of two consecutive words, often with humorous results. ![]() Myself, I tend to associate Malapropisms (the accidental substitution of a incorrect word in place of another, usually similar-sounding one) in fiction with Arthur Daley, the small-time, dodgy as-they-get wheeler dealer in TV’s Minder (“From now on the world is your lobster”, the “Arfur” Daley variation on “oyster”) and in real life with former Australian PM Tony Abbott (“the suppository of all wisdom” (should have said “repository”)). ![]() For these two terms for errors in natural speech (or if you prefer, modes of original linguistic inventiveness) we have the fictional “Mrs Malaprop” and the real life “Reverend Spooner” to thank. The chances are most folk with a passing interest in words and language have come across the odd Malapropism and Spoonerism in their travels. You can find them by searching the blog archive.“Arfur D” Malapropising (Photo: ITV/Scope) Over the years we’ve written many articles about idioms over on the blog. It comes from the Middle French ‘ idiome’, from the Late Latin ‘ idioma’ meaning ‘ a peculiarity in language’, from the Greek ‘ idioma’ meaning ‘ peculiar phraseology’. The word idiom has been used in English since the 1580s to mean ‘ form of speech peculiar to a people or place’ and since the 1620s to mean ‘ phrase or expression peculiar to language’. What’s fascinating about idioms is that, because they are born from cultural and historical context, they vary from language to language Click here for some examples of idioms from other languages. He was always ahead of the curve when it came to fashion. ![]() I’d love to be a fly on the wall when she finally tells them the truth.Ī small occurrence exaggerated out of proportionĪll this outrage seems like a storm in a teacup to me.Īhead of trends/the current state of thinking Here are some examples of idioms and what they mean: They are combinations of word which have a figurative meaning that is separate for the actual definitions of the words used. Idioms are an expressive way of using language. Last week we looked at the origins of the word languageand today we’re going to continue on that theme with the word idiom. ![]()
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