Mondegreen

If you don’t know what a mondegreen is, I’m sure you are in good company. I happen to love the word. I think I heard it from Tisra first and have only had to look it up once since then to remember the term correctly. You may not be familiar with the term, but I’m sure you have heard one or created one yourself.

By definition a mondegreen is:

–noun
a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

Origin:
1954; coined by Sylvia Wright, U.S. writer, from the line laid him on the green, interpreted as Lady Mondegreen, in a Scottish ballad

When Sylvia Wright introduced the world to mondegreens she said, “The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.”

I discovered today that I had been using a mondegreen while singing one of my favorite “Need to Breathe” songs. Sometimes the lead singer slurs his words together a bit and it’s hard to make out what he’s actually saying. Especially when you’re singing along really loud. Having also, only today, read Sylvia Wright’s remark that the new phrase is “better than the original.” I am inclined to see my lyric choice as the better of the two.

You can be the judge:

Actual lyrics – “I’m not leaving without a fight
I’ve got my holsters around my sides
Just cause I’m wrong that don’t make you right
It’s not right”

My lyrics – “I’m not leaving without a fight
I’ve got my hopes up around my sight
Just cause I’m wrong that don’t make you right
No it’s not right.”

Yeah…maybe mine isn’t actually better, but I thought it was such a clever line to say my hopes are up around my sight. Like Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. As if the singer were so confident in what he were fighting for that his hopes were becoming visible to him.

Oh well.