mondegreen

Meaning

Noun

• “The ants are my friends, blowin’ in the wind.” (“The answer, my friend, is...”) from Bob Dylan's “Blowin' In the Wind.”
• “There's a bathroom on the right” (“There's a bad moon on the rise”) from Creedence Clearwater Revival's “Bad Moon Rising.”
• “'Scuse me while I kiss this guy” (“'Scuse me while I kiss the sky”) from Jimi Hendrix's “Purple Haze.”
• “Andy walks with me…” (“And He walks with me…”) from the hymn “In The Garden”
• A form of error arising from mishearing a spoken or sung phrase.
• A misunderstanding of a written or spoken phrase as a result of multiple definitions.

Origin

• in Harper's Magazine{{cite-journal
• |month=November
• |year=1954
• |work=Harper's Magazine
• |author=Sylvia Wright
• |title=The Death of Lady Mondegreen
• |volume=209
• |issue=1254
• |pages=48–51
• |url=http://www.drapersguild.com/uploads/1/2/8/5/12854632/harpersmagazine-1954-11-0006768.pdf
• |passage=The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.
• from a mishearing of a line in the Scottish ballad The Bonnie Earl O' Moray: “They have slain the Earl O' Moray, / And laid him on the green” (misheard as “Lady Mondegreen”).