Kiss this Guy

[beetiger]

Merriam-Webster has once again added words to the dictionary. This is in fact, their job, so no surprise here. New entries include edamame, air quotes, fanboy, pescatarian, racino, and norovirus. But the "new" word (coined in 1954) they are featuring most is "mondegreen", a term for a misheard song lyric. The derivation is a mishearing of a lyric in a Scottish ballad, "laid him on the green", as "Lady Mondegreen".

In any case, the folks at M-W are having a mondegreen contest. I don't think there's a prize or anything, but if you've got a favorite that you want to share, go on over there. I need to ask bard_bloom which piece of the Messiah sounds to him like "and then He soundproofed me" again.

Comments

[akycha.livejournal.com]

I love mondegreens! Cross-language ones are especially entertaining. I think there's a word for these in Japan, *checks internet* there is! Soramimi. I think it is used for both cross-language and same-language.

Wikipedia lists one that always cracks me up. The Beatles' "I want to hold your hand" apparently sounds like "idiotic public urination" in Japanese.