| mondegreen |
| Definition: Incorrectly hearing a word or a phrase and then reinterpreting as being something else. |
| Example:
Hearing Psalm 23 as: "Surely, Good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life."
(instead of "Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life") |
| Etymology:
The term was coined by the American writer Sylvia Wright in her 1954 essay "The Death of Lady Mondegreen" (Harper's Magazine, November 1954). Note: According to Wright, she chose the term because when she was a child, her mother used to read the ballad "The Bonnie Earl O' Murray" to her, wherein one particular passage Wright interpreted as follows: "Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl Amurray, And Lady Mondegreen The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green." |
| Oxford English Dictionary: There is no OED entry for this term. |