Do you know who Lady Modegreen is or was? You're about to find out.

The Tragedy of Lady Mondegreen

Recently I have been sharing a few laughs with various friends about the differences between American English and British English. It is not just in differences of understanding that the potential for laughter lies of course, but in the difference between what we hear and what we think we hear.

The word "mondegreen" was coined in an article in Harper’s Magazine in the 1950s. Sylvia Wright recalled her mother reading to her a traditional Scottish Ballad, "The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray,"

Ye highlands and ye lowlands,
oh where hae ye been?
They hae slain The Earl of Moray
And Lady Mondegreen.

Poor Lady Mondegreen, but what a romantic story of how this noblewoman died alongside her lover. Well it would be if the last line was really as typed and not "and laid him on the green."

Religion provides a rich pickings for mondegreen prospectors. An example is the line in Psalm 23 that goes "Good Mrs Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life." That was back then of course, now we would recognise Mrs. Murphy not as god but as a psychotic stalker. Just as well then the line actually reads "goodness and mercy."

The Irish comedian Dave Allen used to recall attending a funeral as a child and being upset by the priest’s too graphic commentary on the proceedings: "in the name of the father, the son and in the hole he goes." That one went down like a lead coffin when he told people why he was crying.

The classic religious example however, narrowly edging out The Lord’s Prayer (Our Father who art in heaven, Harold be they name," comes from the Hail Mary in which Mary is attended by an aquatic friar: "Hail Mary full of grace, blessed art thou a monk swimming." (amongst women.)

Many mondegreens are local, while children throughout the English speaking world mishear the above example from The Lord’s Prayer, in Nottingham, home of Robin Hood, which stands by the River Trent, the prayer is recited in school assemblies as "lead us not into Trent Station."

But it is not just poetry and prayers that breed mondegreens. Author Monica Dickens tells a story of how one at a book signing in Australia a woman thrust a book towards her saying "Emma Chissit.".

The author duly signed "to Emma Chissit" before realising that in the peculiarly constipated accent of the Australian middle class the woman had been asking "how much is it?" But as a broadcaster who should have known better once said, "cloak wheel language is a minefield" so we will not stray too deeply into it.

And back to religion again for the story of the little girl whose favourite party game was Pastor Parcel.

Nature provides a famous mondegreen, everybody knows the nuts that grow on oak trees are called eggcorns don’t they? Well maybe not. And Bob Dylan’s lyric "the ants are my friends," is sung all around the world. Pop music is a rich source but as diction is not the strong point of many rock singers we will pass by misheard lyrics which have spawned a million web pages and stick with the eggcorns.

Eggcorn has become a synonym for mondegreen. Students of linguistics can find all sorts of subtle technical distinctions between the two but in lame man’s term they are the same thing, a homonym, a word or phrase that is mistaken because it sounds the same as something else.

Well I did not want this article to seem like a half – asked effort but I think I have given you enough to set something going here. If you would like to put in your two senseworth by sharing your favourites we could build our own dictionary.