I was reading about some of the new words Merriam-Webster has added to the dictionary. Mondegreen and it’s meaning were too interesting to pass up and made me think what a great Art Slam challenge it would be to incorporate a mondegreen in an art journal entry. Here is what mondegreen means and some examples you can use in your journal. If you have a better one, feel free to use it in your project.
Mondegreen
Pronunciation: \ˈmän-də-ˌgrçn\
: a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung <“very close veins” is a mondegreen for “varicose veins”>
Examples can be found in this article by Stephanie Reitz
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080707/new_dictionary_words.html?.v=1 : “There’s a bathroom on the right” in place of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “There’s a bad moon on the rise” and “‘Scuse me, while I kiss this guy” in place of “kiss the sky” in the 1967 Jimi Hendrix classic “Purple Haze.” Even Sokolowski, a word expert by trade, has a favorite mondegreen: “Lucy in the sky with diamonds,” as sung by the Beatles in 1967, made obvious sense to the preteen Peanuts comic fan as “Lucy in the sky with Linus.”
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Jill - Okay, that just may be the coolest word ever. It has been officially added to my vocabulary…and to the extra credit section of my students’ spelling tests. They love quirky words like that.