Of mondegreens and other variants

A mondegreen, as I suppose you already know, is a misinterpretation of a line or lyric in a song, caused by similarity in pronunciation. I am rather unsusceptible to mondegreens because of my habit of obsessively checking song lyrics online. Also, to come up with mondegreens like the famous ‘Michelle mondegreen’, I suppose you need much more imagination than I possess:

Incorrect version: Sunday monkey won’t play piano song
Correct version: Sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble

I ask you! Paul’s French isn’t that bad.

My favourite mondegreen is from another Beatles song – Hey Bulldog. There’s a line which goes “Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles.” For years I used to think that the last word is ‘smiles’. Taken together with lines like “Some kind of innocence is measured out in years,” ‘smiles’ seems to fit so much better.

Speaking of which, Saha has a lovely post about a personal mondegreen.

Also on the topic of mondegreens, consider the following snatch of conversation, and believe me when I tell you I didn’t make it up:

Prateek Shroff: I have a match with the VC tomorrow.
Lahiri: What! Nandan Nawn is taking extra classes?

This, however, is not technically a mondegreen. There is a word in the English language for it. It’s called deafness.