mondegreens

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  • pssh, spell checker. clearly you have not seen "Owed to a Spell Chequer"

    http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/PEOPLE/faculty/tenn/SpellingChequer.html
  • I was listening to a couple of Elton John songs today. After years and years, I still can't understand half of what he is saying...
  • hold me close now, Tony Danza?
  • So is "JoCo" mis-hearable as "Joke-O," as in "Joke-O the Clown"?

    I fucking well hope not.
  • Joke-Os, the fun way to start the day!
  • I'm looking for the Burns-Os.
  • Luke: When I was explaining to someone at the Darin Strauss book reading that I was a moderator on JoCopedia, he first assumed I had said Joke-O-Pedia, which sounds ... well, just awful.
  • Joke-Os, that just makes me think of thermo dyn-a-mix (thermodynamics) the tasty breakfast treat. The warm dinosaur shaped cereal.
  • I was listening to a couple of Elton John songs today. After years and years, I still can't understand half of what he is saying...
    That's funny JoAnn. I've never had a problem but I was lip synching to EJ when I was 8 years old too.
  • CoolJammer, I love that Tony Danza one! ^_^

    One could almost mishear Private Dancer in the same way!

    "I'm your private Danza, your Danza for money, I'll do what you want me to do..."

    I want you to keep your clothes on and stay well away from me Tony Danza, that's what I want you to do!
  • My personal childhood mondegreen was Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2. I wasn't really old enough to fully understand "dark sarcasm", but was old enough to know that kids in school could have lunchboxes, notebooks or other items in tribute to a popular television show:

    "Your Dukes of Hazzard, in the classroom ..."
  • anyone here have that series of books about misheard lyrics? Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, I've Got The Whole World In My Pants, etc.

    the thing about these "misheard" lyrics is that they sometimes sound so fake, that I think they might be made up. Thinking No Doubt's "Spiderwebs" has a line about "an evil mass of gel will call you back"? Really, general public? I think I got that when that album came out and I was 5 or 6. I didn't even know what "screening your phone calls" meant.
  • I've only seen the website.

    I'm one of the people who heard "I scream my balls off" instead of "I screen my phone calls" by the way. When I went to add it to the site a few years ago it was already there.
  • I was going to link to the Doifter's "You Make Me Feel Like Danson," but she's taken the video down, I think.
  • "I just don't get it. Who was this Ted Danson? And why would you pay $10,000 for his skeleton?"
    "I have an idea for sitcom."
  • Heh, CJ00. Anchovies.
  • And in the late 80s, early 90s, when everyone in this area (including my own family) watched the Mets and talked about Gooden and Strawberry
    That reminds me of the following mondegreen:
    Though she's not quite as fun as Gooden, man,
    You better put her on
    She can change the game
    For a while I honestly thought the song was talking about baseball.
  • edited July 2008
    Somehow this mondegreen (remember how this thread was supposed to be about mondegreens??) has not been mentioned yet. Seeing as people have already been through a big discussion in this thread (wha?) about offensive words I hope this doesn't re-start that discussion.

    Song: Still Alive
    lyric: "When I look out there it makes me glad I'm not you"
    mondegreen: "When I look out there it makes me glad I'm a jew"

    Certainly not how the lyrics were intended, of course. Certain cover versions of the song with less well-elocuted lyric performances (see YouTube) can sound like this. Humour is, as always, subjective.

    Also, cheers to anyone who knows what Spelt is (see above). That's some serious agricultural trivia knowledge.
  • When I look out there it makes me glad I'm a jew
    Now I'm imagining a klezmer cover. Of course it will have to be translated into Yiddish...
  • I'm definitely going to tell my Jewish friend who suddenly started paying attention to my incessant raving about Coulton when I mentioned he'd written Still Alive about that.
  • I regularly drive past the J&W Deli. And all the time, even though I *know* it's J&W and i *know* I've been through this before in my head ... I still occasionally double take because I could swear I just saw the "Jew Deli". Which usually means good pickles. :D
  • I was just listening to a live version of Betty and Me, and realised it's 'prehensile tail' and not 'three heads or tail'.
  • Just seen this thread...
    I know it's a little pervy, but I initially thought the line was...


    "My beige bear, still has four paws, two holes..."

    I thought... "Wha' !!!??"
  • a lesson in anatomy. one is for eatin', one's for poopin'. ;-)

    At least that's how you tell a kid it is.
  • I realised last night that I had the last line of Monkey Shines wrong. I thought it was, 'This monkey shines wherever he goes' which I thought was a nice play on words.
  • What are the actual words, because that sounds right to me.
  • I thought it was "There's monkey shines..."

    I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but I used to hear a line in I Feel Fantastic as "Work is easy when you don't stress out about dead lions."

    And two examples in my latest song fu entry. Even though I sing "the elves turn tail", it sounds like "the elves turn pale". And whenever the title line comes up, I keep hearing "we're marching to sell a door." That last one isn't completely an accident, since I named the fictional country after Tolkein's known love for the sound of the words "cellar door".
  • I heard the same line as Angela. Oops.
  • I heard "'Cause Monkey shines wherever you go", and that was on the wiki as the lyrics until moments ago when I changed it. The line doesn't entirely make sense to me.
  • Since monkeyshines is slang for pranks, cutups and other mischievousness, the line makes perfect sense.
  • Thanks for that explanation. I never understood how or why "shines" was being used as a noun there.
  • Oh right I was not aware of the slang term, thanks rob. It does seem to make some what more sense now.
  • I'd heard of the term (though I admit I looked it up in the dictionary before posting this to make sure it meant what I thought it meant) and I thought the last line (as I heard it) was a nice pun on it. I still think my version is better, actually, especially since it has subject-verb agreement.
  • I had always heard the line "And the rocks outside the airlock exude ammonia scented snow" in Chiron Beta Prime as "And the rocks outside the airlock - 'Pseudomonas scented snow' " until I watched it on the DVD. I guess my time working in a clinical lab rubbed off more than I thought!
  • What does a pseudomonas smell like anyway? Or don't I want to know?
  • i would imagine much like regular Monas.
  • I'm not sure, since I haven't knowingly had any in my nose, but I can tell you it doesn't sound like much.
  • I can't tell you the specific smell for Pseudomonas, I just remember the smell of the petri dishes. Take the smell of unwashed ass with a slight hint of sweetness on top and you have the exact aroma I remember.
  • I would think Sudowoodo smells like wood.

    image

    (A little Pokemon humor)
  • "There's monkey shines wherever you go" makes me cringe because to my English major ear it should be "There're [there are] monkey shines wherever you go." But that doesn't scan very well. I kinda like "this monkey shines wherever he goes" better!
  • Does it help if "monkey shines" is a mass noun?
  • Is it? I'm not convinced. "Monkey shines" sounds plural to me. Webster's dictionary says a single "monkey shine" is a prank but it is usually used in plural form. You wouldn't say "There's pranks" while you would say "there's water." But I never studied grammar any harder than I needed to : )
  • I always heard it used in sentences like this (generally by a threatening parental unit) "I don't want to hear about any of your monkey shines when I get back from the store, now! I like the use of "mass noun" to describe it- not a term I am used to, but it instantly made sense.
  • According to one source, it's not a mass noun if it's used in the singular with an indefinite article ("a monkey shine"), but if the singular has passed from common usage, then it might be fair game. Webster's dictionary, at least in its free, online form, is often based on the 1913 edition, and if the singular has passed out of common usage, this might not be reflected in older sources.
  • Personally I'd prefer "this monkey shines wherever he goes" because of the double meaning. I'm kind of surprised JoCo didn't seize on that; he's big on puns and double meanings and all nature of wordplay.
  • but there is a double meaning because Monkey Shines not only reffers to the pranks and cut ups but also to the monkey himself. That's the way i heard it anyway.
  • edited July 2009
    The monkey's name is Monkey Shines? Or that's his nickname? I thought his name was Brian Dennehy. OK, I'm calling JoCo right now to straighten this up. And it should go into the LFAQ.

    Actually now that I think of it my double meaning doesn't make sense anyway unless you break the fourth wall and assume the song can refer to the name of the TV show itself. Maybe he was actually singing "and Monkey Shines is the name of this show?"

    But that's just the kind of rebel Coulton was. In fact, I heard tell that he set up a fifth and sixth wall, just so he could crash through them, yelling "Oh Yeah!" like a bearded, underweight Kool-Aid Man.

    Oh, God, I'm so depressed.
  • But that's just the kind of rebel Coulton was. In fact, I heard tell that he set up a fifth and sixth wall, just so he could crash through them, yelling "Oh Yeah!" like a bearded, underweight Kool-Aid Man.
    Just because of the awesomeness of this comment I'm going to have to quote it somewhere.
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