One place we see this happen a lot is in song lyrics. It's not exactly entirely clear why this happens, we just know that it does. The acoustic information that's received and the interpretation a brain comes up with simply don't match up. This is essentially what happens in the childhood game of "telephone." As one friend whispers a word or phrase into another's ear, it can become wildly distorted, and a totally different word or phrase can come out the other side. According to the author, when she was young her mother would read to her from a book called "Reliques of Ancient Verse." Her favorite poem from the 1765 book went like this: "Ye Highland and Ye Lowlands / Oh where have you been? / They have slain the Earl o'Moray / And laid him on the green." Wright, however, heard the last line as "And Lady Mondegreen."Ī mondegreen actually takes place between auditory perception (the physical act of hearing) and meaning-making (when our brains imbibe the noises with significance). The term was coined in a November 1954 Harper's Bazaar piece, where the author, Sylvia Wright, recalled a childhood mishearing. The word mondegreen is defined as a misheard word or phrase that makes sense in your head, but is, in fact, incorrect.
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