Logophile’s Lunchbox — Misheard Words

This week’s Lunchbox rounds up four words for the misunderstood phrases that have delighted and bemused listeners.

The mondegreen is familiar to anyone who’s tried to puzzle out the meaning of cryptic lyrics. Perhaps the most famous of these comes from Purple Haze, by Jimi Hendrix, where “Excuse me while I kiss the sky” is misheard as “Excuse me while I kiss this guy”.

The phenomenon is so widespread, creative individuals have turned misheard lyrics into an art form on YouTube:

• Wishmaster
• Ledbetter Heights
• Boom Boom Ba

When the misunderstanding stems from a foreign language being misinterpreted as a familiar language, that’s a soramimi, as seen in this example:

Mangled phrases in speech are just as common. When the choice of word seems logical, but isn’t quite right, that’s an eggcorn:

• “My grandmother has Old-Timer’s disease.”
• “The referee declared the ball out of bounce.”
• “That performer’s a real pre-Madonna.”

Eggcorns are a plausible substitution of words, but when the results create a new meaning — one that’s often pure nonsense — that’s a malapropism:

• “He is a Roaming Catholic priest.”
• “She told an amusing antidote.”
• “I remembered it with the help of a pneumonic device.”

Now when you hear a humorous slip of the tongue you’ll know exactly what to call it, and you’ll soon earn a reputation as a suppository of knowledge.