Mondegreens

From Canadian Headhunter, we get this most excellent wanted word: mondegreen. It means:

A series of words that result from the mishearing or misinterpretation of a statement or song lyric. For example, I led the pigeons to the flag for I pledge allegiance to the flag.

Excellent. Another needful gap in my vocabulary closed. Another 145,000 words and I’ll know them all. The first personal mondegreen that comes to mind is for Sarah McLachlan’s Building a Mystery. I heard ‘you strech your ass to wear’ when the actual line, of course, is ‘you strut your rasta wear’. Who knew? If you consult KissThisGuy.com, you see that others agreed with me. Am I Right is another similar resource.

Mondegreens–a cautionary tale in musical pronounciation. Rock mumblers of the world, take note.