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The Grumpy Grammarian

EGGCORNS, MONDEGREENS, AND MALAPROPS

One of the most amusing series of entries on this site's message boards was last month's exchange that appeared under the heading "Eggcorns" (click here to view the post and the comments).  Until the original poster (who uses the screen name of "rhubarb") mentioned eggcorns, I had not heard that term.  It turns out that "eggcorns" are what I had known as mondegreens – errors based on mishearing of words or phrases, as when someone thinks that "Gladly the cross I'd bear" refers to a cross-eyed bear named Gladly ("Gladly, the cross-eyed bear").

The term mondegreen comes from a mishearing of the words of an old ballad.  The lyrics say, "They had slain the Earl of Morray and laid him on the green."  However, someone heard this as, "They had slain the Earl of Morray and Lady Mondegreen."  Hence, the term mondegreen was born, along with several articles with such titles as "The Death of Lady Mondegreen."

Mondegreens (or eggcorns, if you prefer) usually occur when someone mishears something that is sung or recited – songs, poems, prayers or passages of scripture, and so on.  They also occur when people substitute a more familiar word or phrase for something that is unfamiliar to them.  Children, for example, may think that God's name is Harold because, after all, the prayer that they learn to recite says "Harold be thy name" (not many ten-year-olds are familiar with word hallowed).  Even college students may write mondegreens, as did the student who called the main dishes in a meal "on trays" (though perhaps she meant it because she was writing about cafeteria food).  One may also hear mondegreens in daily conversation.  My wife worked with someone who constantly called albacore tuna "apple core tuna."  If you listen carefully, you may notice that some people are saying "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes," repeating what they think they have heard without, of course, considering what an "intensive purpose" might be.

But I digress – let's return to true mondegreens.  Christmas songs are a great source for them, from the famous "Round John Virgin" to "While shepherds washed their socks by night" to "Olive, the other reindeer."  (To see more, follow this link). So are other songs, particularly when poetic language is misheard.  Thus, "There's a bad moon on the rise" becomes "There's a bathroom on the right" and "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes" becomes "The girl with colitis goes by."  (To see more, follow this link and this one.)  We also have the misquotations of scripture:  "Surely good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Psalm 23).

I'm uncertain whether misspellings and typos constitute true mondegreens, but I've seen my share of them from students who either don't read much or are inattentive to what they read.  Here are a few:
> They are expecting a new edition to the family.
> Not many people get the measlies these days.
> Students must take standard eyes tests.
> I think I may have just been going through a phrase.
> Jews celebrate Yon Kipper.
> He is always finding loop holes and getting threw them.
> Impolite drivers make rude jesters with their hands.
> Egotists tend to tote their own horn.
> Drug attics have no control over their selves.
> I can push a button to find out how many minuets I have left on my cell phone.
> We shouldn't signal out disruptive students.
> All I can do is just bare with it and carry on.
and, of a man who was expelled from the Boy Scouts,
> He was wrong, but the Scouts shouldn't have  dismembered him.

Unintentional student humor doesn't end with mondegreens and other misuses.  There's the young lady who wrote about "emotional feelings" (are there any other kind?) and the young man who said of his hobby, "I enjoy it because it's fun" (a statement that no doubt explains itself because it is self-explanatory).  Some students send mixed signals.  "Nothing will hold me back towards my goal," one declared.  Commenting on a college requirement, one student said that "it should not be required but mandatory."  Realizing that this might be confusing, he explained that it should be a "mandatory option." 

We can debate as much as we want whether gaffes of this type represent low levels of literacy, defective brain circuitry, or just carelessnees.  I think we'll all agree, however, that they are funny.

A close relative of the mondegreen is the malaprop or malapropism, the substitution of a similar-sounding word for the word that one intends to use.  The term malaprop derives from Mrs. Malaprop, a character created by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in an 18th-century comedy, The Rivals.  One of her most mangled statements contains four malaprops:  "Sure, if I reprehend [apprehend] anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular [vernacular] tongue, and a nice derangement [arrangement] of epitaphs [epithets]!"  (For more examples of Mrs. Malaprop's malapropisms, click here.) 

The spirit of Mrs. Malaprop lives on.  Who hasn't heard someone refer to the the prostate gland as "the prostrate gland"?  Or maybe you've heard someone call  an optical illusion "an optical delusion."  I'm sure not many of my 9th-grade schoolmates have forgotten the English teacher (of all people) who used to always call exclamation points "ejaculation points" (leading us boys into wild speculations about her private life).

I think we're all amused by malapropisms, especially when the speaker is a pompous ass who is trying to impress us with his or her vocabulary.  If you like them just because they're funny, you can find several sites devoted entirely or in part to examples of malaprops.  The Wikipedia entry on malapropisms gives several, with links to other sites.

Although I find it hard to do, I sometimes invent malapropisms, though I'm never sure whether my creations are malaprops or mondegreens.  Here are a few that I made up for this column (though some, admittedly, are so obvious that they may already appear elsewhere):
> His writing is full of fragrant [flagrant] errors.
> Students in the biology lab were studying microscopic orgasms [organisms].
> She's not sick; her elements [ailments] are all psycho chromatic [psychosomatic].
> Some business writers cannot write anything without using buzzards [buzz words].
> As I turned my head, I got a cricket [crick] in my neck.
> He put his money in the night suppository [depository].
> To save energy, replace indecent [incandescent] bulbs with fluorescent ones.
> They were united in holy acrimony [matrimony].  (For some marriages, acrimony is the right word.)
> If our economy gets worse, the U.S. may become a bandana [banana] republic.
> The suspect was charged with premedicated [premeditated] murder.

Indelibly [Indubitably], someone will post better ones on the massage [message] board.