Most examples of Mondegreens Mondegreen - Wikipedia are from songs (people who think the words are “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear” not “Gladly, the cross I’d bear”). Anyone have good examples of times you’ve misheard something not in a song?
When I was much younger, references to “Montgomery Ward” always sounded liked “Mockery Reward” and I thought that “Ann Jillian” was an actress who had only a first name (like Vera-Ellen or Rose Marie) - “Angelian” (like an angel?).
When I was a kid, I heard that pneumonia was a horrible disease.
I also heard about scrubbing floors with an ammonia-based cleaner.
And I thought that was one thing, which I thought was awesome. Oh, is some filth on the floor a problem? Then just pour this liquid illness on it for the win.
My cousins used to call asparagus “parrot grass,” because that’s how they heard it.
They also thought that when they said “Corpus Christi” at Mass, they were saying “Salt is crispy.”
How many kids in Boston drove over “Mr. Crivers’ Bridge?”
How about a visual mondegreen? You know how on the back of the penny it shows the Lincoln Memorial? And if you look really really closely, you can see the terrifying floating octopus inside the building?
My older sister explained to me that it was a statue of the seated Lincoln, but I didn’t believe her.
I was older than I should have been when I learned there was an image of Lincoln on the back - I didn’t even find it myself, I think someone here told me- but now I see the octopus! As a kid you must have thought that was so freakin’ weird.
“Dragon Drop” interface. (“Drag ‘n’ Drop”)
That reminds me of this one from a Newsweek reporter in this article In Quicken They Trust who quotes a fan of “Quicken” as saying “I’m hot-keen all over that program” - I quite sure that she said “I’m* hot-keying* all over that program”
In Stephen Levy’s book “Hackers” he quotes a hacker as describing a programming challenge as being “the pawn’s ass” - but I’m reasonably sure that what was said was “the Pons Asinorum” Pons asinorum - Wikipedia
One of my college roommates was visited by his parents for the weekend. They took him out to a nicer restaurant for dinner, and they then proceeded to embarrass him when they ordered “a giraffe of wine.”
“And to the republic for Richard Stans” in the US Pledge of Allegiance.
Anyway, I think we may be blurring the distinction between a mondegreen and an eggcorn here.
I’m totally with you – as a kid, I though that “pneumonia” and “ammonia” were the same thing.
And a latrine of soup.
“Soup or salad?”
“No, just a regular one.”
A restaurant I used to frequent was called The Maple Leaf Grill. Once, when I mentioned it to a friend, she thought I’d said The Make-Believe Girl.
It’s a doggy-dog world.
I still get messed up on symphony and sympathy.
When I was in high school in 1985 a girl and I were talking about our favorite heavy metal bands. She said, “I really like the chick in Warlock.” I replied, “The Chicken Warlock? Never heard of them.” (She was referring to Doro, apparently.)
I spent a whole lot of time thinking that Pia Zadora only used her first initial and was P. Isadora.
Another one I still get messed up on… melanoma and melatonin.
No, I don’t want to go skiing at thalidomide! Telluride? Sounds the same to me.
There is (said to be) a hockey team in Toronto called the Make Believes.
Of course the well known Mares eat oats…
One I like is in the form of a limerick:
The reverend Henry Ward Beecher
Said the chicken’s a most elegant creature
A hen, hearing that
Laid an egg in his hat
And thus did the hen reward Beecher
Well obviously they wanted this.