It came to my attention tonight that perhaps, just perhaps, I don't think like other people. Let's say my thinking is outside the box. Wait, let's be real, my thinking has it's own little box somewhere. This all came from a discussion of the Lord's Prayer at my book club. Where I just happened to mention that when I was a kid that I thought the one line was "give us this day our jelly bread". Now I wasn't a big fan of jelly bread back then, but what the heck, if God was going to give me jelly bread, who was I to say no.Now really I am sure some of you out there might of thought the same thing and then again maybe not. Did you know there is a name for all this. Sure enough, it's called a mondegreen.
A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near homophony, (A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. in a way that gives it a new meaning. Like to, two and too) It most commonly is applied to a line in a poem or a lyric in a song.
Three best know mondegreens are:
-
- "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear (from the line in the hymn "Keep Thou My Way" by Fanny Crosby, "Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I'll bear")
- There's a bathroom on the right (the line at the end of each verse of "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival "There's a bad moon on the rise")
- 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy (from a lyric in the song "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix "'Scuse me while I kiss the sky")
Well since she put me down, I've been out doin' my head
But someone had heard:
Well since she put me down, I've got owls puking in my bed
So you see, I don't think that jelly bread and daily bread are that far off. And true, I might not think the same way as other people, but then again, wouldn't that be boring if I did.
and that's just .......... a brother stays in a cat with socks on. Oops, I meant to say..... another day in Catasauqua.
