The spread of mondegreens should have ended with the Internet — but it hasn’t
You may not know what “mondegreen” means, but you definitely have a great mondegreen story — like maybe mishearing the chorus for the Cuban song “Guantanamera” as “One ton tomato. I ate a one ton tomato.”
The word mondegreen was coined in an essay by writer Sylvia Wright in which she described misinterpreting a line from the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl of Moray.” The actual line was, “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray, And laid him on the green.”
What did she hear? “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray, And Lady Mondegreen.”
For PRI’s The World (a co-production of the BBC)
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