Whats the technical term for this kind of language error
“Crimes and Mr. Meaners “
Its more than a spelling mistake, but doesn’t have the meaning shift of a mondegreen or eggcorn.
Malapropism ?
I don’t get how that’s not a mondegreen. Isn’t the whole point of calling it that was that “Lady Mondegreen” got so invented — much like, say, “Olive, The Other Reindeer” did?
Hmm. Im not 100% convinced by either because i think the wrong word in a malapropism or mondegreen has to independently make sense. And its not a covfefe because its not utter gibberish either.
Irregardless, for all intensive purposes it’s a mute point.
To me, hearing “slain the Earl of Moray, and laid him on the green” and figuring it’s “slain the Earl of Moray, and Lady Mondegreen” has no obvious make-sense advantage over rendering “crimes and misdemeanors” as “crimes and Mister Meaners.”
Why do you think one would make more sense than the other?
Tony Soprano: It’s like a hotel at Captain Teebs!
IMO the correct term for the OP’s example is:
Computer speech recognition error uncorrected due to lack of human proofreading.
I don’t know that society has settled on a one-word term for that concept.
PEBCAK or ID-10-T error
The palindrome of “Bolton” is “Notlob.” It don’t work!
I’m not sure how the example in the OP isn’t a meaning shift.
Maybe it’s the result of a Freudian sleep?
But the word “mondegreen” doesn’t mean anything, the sound is misinterpreted as a surname, and although it’s a plausible-sounding name it’s not one that exists (so far as I’m aware). If “Mondegreen” were “Smith” or “Johnson” you might have a point, but it’s hard to come up with a more perfect parallel than “Crimes and Mr. Meaners”.
A mondegreen is specifically a misheard song lyric though. I think the word you’re looking for is “eggcorn”.
I don’t think that’s the difference. A mondegreen is a mishearing (often of a lyric, but not necessarily so) that drastically changes the meaning. An eggcorn often does not change the meaning significantly, it just misunderstands the exact wording that is being used to express the meaning. An eggcorn often involves the substitution of some other plausible metaphor that is taken to mean exactly (or almost) the same thing.
That’s just another one of whatever it’s called. The actual phrase would be ‘all intensive porpoises’.
“For all intensive purposes” is an eggcorn. It’s the wrong words but people are still interpreting it with approximately the correct meaning. That’s why it persists - the semantics work fine, so it’s not obvious from context that it’s wrong.
“Crimes and Mr. Meaners” is not an eggcorn, it is a mondegreen. The meaning has changed drastically. That also accounts for the fact that mondegreens are often from lyrics, rather than use in general communication where such a gross semantic error will often be more obvious from context.
The etymology for “Misdemeanor” is minor crime. So we see today there are charges for “Serious Misdemeanors” or, serious minor crimes.
In our family, we call it an autocarrot.
It does have a ‘jumbo shrimp’ feel to it. I guess some minor crimes can be more serious than others. Actual shrimp sizes are measured by count to weight, like 25-30 per pound. Descriptions of actual laws should be somewhat more precise also, and I think they usually are with different classes applied to the specific offense.
A quick look shows me that there’s no consistency state by state for those classifications. Here in Rhode Island a misdemeanor is a crime with a maximum sentence of 1 year and a maximum fine of $1000. A maximum sentence of 6 months and a maximum fine of $500 would make it a petty misdemeanor.