Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Say WHAT?!?

To keep my mind from worrying since it's another 2.5 hours until I go see the doctor and find out the results of my mammogram, I thought I'd write about my tendency to be hard of hearing (or have selective hearing as Logan believes).

There is a commercial for some medication (I've never paid attention well enough to hear the brand name.) which starts out with someone saying, "my asthma...". I always hear "miasma" instead.

In the song More Than A Woman by the Bee Gees, it always sounds like they're saying "bald-headed woman" to me. Then there are the songs that are "filked" on purpose. Jerry, my daughter Beth's biological father, used to sing "pussy on a highway" instead of "put me on a highway", "take it to my bedroom" instead of "take it to the limit", and when they sang, "and show me a sign", he'd flip the bird to the radio. Childish, yes, but really, really funny when you've been toking a joint.

Apparently, I'm not alone in mis-hearing things. There are a few websites out there dedicated to this phenomenon:

http://www.amiright.com/misheard/artist/springsteenbruce.shtml http://www.sandiegoscene.com/ezine/articles/rice.htm

There's even a discussion about this topic on one of my favorite reference sites, Mudcat.org:

http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=5803

I wasn't aware there was a word for these types of occurrences, "Mondegreens". I did know about Malapropisms, which I find amusing. But I like puns, so it's not a stretch.

Send me your mis-heard song lyrics: janesitton@earthlink.net

Now, back to work.

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