Mondegreen

I misheard the word Mondegreen at a meeting of singing with friends which seems appropriate.

According to Wikipedia

"A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to clearly hear a lyric, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense. American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, writing that as a girl, when her mother read to her from Percy's Reliques she had misheard the lyric "layd him on the green" in the fourth line of the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray" as "Lady Mondegreen".

Lady Mondegreen subsequently became the patron saint of misheard lyrics.

One well-known Mondegreen is from Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix. "'scuse me while I kiss the sky" became "'scuse me while I kiss this guy."

Possibly the weirdest I have come across is "Sparing his life for his pork sausage tea" in Bohemian Rhapsody.

This should read "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."  One of my pupils told me she routinely pledged allegiance to an "invisible" nation when she lived in America.

Finally, I must mention the hymn "Gladly my cross-eyed bear."

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