Mondegreens & Eggcorns

Several years ago, we heard a NPR segment called "When a Man Loves a Walnut" which introduced us to the concept of mondegreens, which are lyrical misunderstandings . . . a slip of the ear, if you will. One of our favorites, for instance, is thinking Jimi Hendrix sang, "Scuse me while I kiss this guy," instead of the actual lyric of "Scuse me while I kiss the sky" (which is still strange, albeit more poetic).

As expert Gavin Edwards explains on Modegreen Central,

The term "mondegreen" was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 Atlantic article. As a child, young Sylvia had listened to a folk song that included the lines "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And Lady Mondegreen." As is customary with misheard lyrics, she didn't realize her mistake for years. The song was not about the tragic fate of Lady Mondegreen, but rather, the continuing plight of the good earl: "They had slain the Earl of Moray/And laid him on the green."

Now a new concept: eggcorns. Eggcorns are to spelling as mondegreens are to lyrics. If you've ever seen someone write that they are giving "a free reign" to something (instead of "a free rein"), then you've encountered an eggcorn. As The Eggcorn Database explains, eggcorns are "reshapings of words and expressions: a word or part of a word is semantically reanalyzed, and the spelling reflects the new interpretation."

The name of the mistake--eggcorn--is a misunderstanding of acorn and became the name of this particular linguistic error in 2003. Eggcorns are different from (but related to) malapropisms because eggcorns are actual homonyms, whereas most malapropisms are sound-related but different (such as allegory for alligator).

For more, see an entry on Language Log by Arnold Zwicky entitled "Lady Mondegreen Says Her Peace about Egg Corns" and another by Mark Liberman on "Eggcorn Terminology."