What Is a Mondegreen — bigwords101

In the Creedence Clearwater hit, “Bad Moon Rising,” the line is,”There’s a bad moon on the rise.” But many listeners think it is, “There’s a bathroom on the right.” And if you give a listen you will understand why.  This mishearing is called a mondegreen.

The word mondegreen, means a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric. (Usually, but it can be anything; however, sometimes song lyrics are difficult to understand, so maybe that is why so many are from songs.)

It was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright. As a child, she heard the Scottish ballad The Bonny Earl of Murray and thought that one verse 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.  Years later, she discovered that what they had actually done was slay the Earl of Murray and lay him on the green. Wright then memorialized her Lady Mondegreen with the new word.

I think “for all intensive purposes” is likely a mondegreen. The correct phrase is “for all intents and purposes.” I think people mishear it and then say it wrong. It doesn’t make a lot of sense anyway, so it is easy to make a mistake with it. 

Here are some of the best (and well known, in many cases, mondegreens):

“Every time you go away/you take a piece of meat with you” (should be ” … take a piece of me with you,”) from the Paul Young song “Every Time You Go Away”)

“I led the pigeons to the flag” (for “I pledge allegiance to the flag”)

“Excuse me while I kiss this guy” (should be “Excuse me while I kiss the sky”) from “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix

“The ants are my friends” (for “The answer, my friend”) in “Blowing in the Wind” by Bob Dylan

“I’ll never leave your pizza burning” (for “I’ll never be your beast of burden”) by the Rolling Stones

“The girl with colitis goes by” (for “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes”) in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by the Beatles

“The girl from Emphysema goes walking” (for “The girl from Ipanema goes walking”) in “The Girl from Ipanema,” by Astrud Gilberto 

“Hold me closer Tony Danza”  (should be “Hold me closer tiny dancer”) from “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John

“We built this city on sausage rolls” (should be”We built this city on rock and roll”) by the Starship

These mondegreens caused changes that occurred to words over time:

would have done / would of done
spit and image / spitting image
Welsh rabbit / Welsh rarebit