- Bunny phone instead of funny bone
- Belly jeans instead of jelly beans
- It is kisstomery to cuss the bride
- bad salad instead of sad ballad
What are mondegreens, and are they related to spoonerisms? A mondegreen is the result of hearing something incorrectly, and thinking it is correct. Often, they happen with music or poetry. We will be talking about mondegreens later this month.
What are eggcorns, and are they related to spoonerisms? Yup. It is a really funny name. Similar to mondegreens, eggcorns occur when a common phrase is changed to another similar sounding phrase: “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes” (pretty much the same as a malapropism).
The term egg corn (later becoming one word — eggcorn) was coined by professor of linguistics Geoffrey Pullum in 2003 in response to an article by Mark Liberman on a group blog for linguists. In his article, Liberman talked about a woman who had used the phrase egg corn for acorn, and he noted that this specific type of substitution lacked a name. Pullum suggested using egg corn itself as a label.
Children’s author Shel Silverstein’s book Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook is a collection of kids’ poems based on spoonerisms. This one is called “The Kungle Jing”:
Runny roared to one and all
When he wore his cion’s lostume
To the Walloheen bostume call.
But there he met a leal rion
Who said, “You’d best cake tare,
And do not start believin’
You’re the costume that you wear.”
Shouldn’t that be “Runny *B*abbit: A Billy Sook”?
Yes! Thanks!
inspiring! Thanks
You are very welcome!
Cute. Thanks! MTG comes out with mondegreens all the time, such as the other day when mispronouncing “indictment”. But I won’t repeat it here.
Yes! And that one was quite amusing!!!! Not the brightest crayon in the box.
Wonderful! Thank you!
Thank you! I guess I should have given you credit. Sorry….I thought about it. I will give you credit when I do mondegreens at the end of the month!