Mondegreen | Meaning, Definition & Examples

A mondegreen is a misheard word or phrase, typically from a song or lyric, that often results in nonsense or an amusing result. In the 1980s in the UK, Maxell advertised their audio cassette tapes with a campaign centered on misheard song lyrics.

Mondegreen in an advertising campaign example
The video had an actor holding cue cards with the misheard lyrics as the song played.

The original:
“Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir
So that every mouth can be fed
Poor, poor me, the Israelite.”—”Israelites,” by Desmond Dekker and The Aces

The mondegreen version of the lyric was:
“Get up in the morning, sleeping for bread, sir
Sold out to every monk and beef-head
Oh-oh, me ears are alight”

Mondegreen meaning

A modegreen is a misheard word or phrase that, despite the mishearing, still makes some sense. For example, the child who asked their parents who the “good Mrs. Murphy” was that they sang about in church; it took a while to discover that the hymn in question had the line, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.” “Goodness and mercy” had been misheard as “good Mrs. Murphy.”

The name mondegreen actually comes from a mondegreen recounted by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 essay published in Harper’s. She recalls mishearing a line from a Scottish ballad when she was a child. To her ears, “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and laid him on the green” indicated that both the Earl and “Lady Mondegreen” had been slain.

What causes mondegreen?

The recent progress in automatic voice recognition has, in many ways, served to highlight just how complex recognizing human speech is. The sophisticated decoding that takes place to turn soundwaves into intelligent speech is astonishing.

We use all sorts of processes to help decode the sounds, including visual cues, so it is no surprise that mondegreens are so common in song lyrics, where we have no lips to “read” as we might in a conversation.

Some of the main contributory factors include:

  • Cognitive bias: To help our brains process a potentially overwhelming quantity of data, we use “mental shortcuts” that interpret the data according to previous experience and context. In the case of auditory clues, this might include “hearing” words that aren’t there because they are familiar to us. For example, the chorus of  “So Lonely” by The Police was often heard by UK audiences as “Sue Lawley”—a well-known television personality of the time.
  • Homophones: English is replete with words that sound the same but have different meanings (e.g., “there/they’re/their,” “meet/meat,” “raise/raze”). This can lead to some instances of mondegreen.
  • Unclear speech: It seems that every generation complains that the music preferred by teenagers is ruined because you can’t hear the words. Unclear speech or intrusive musical arrangements can certainly add to the likelihood of a mondegreen.
  • Unfamiliar words or syntax: If a song lyric contains unfamiliar words or unusual sentence structure, it can easily lead to examples of mondegreen.

Mondegreen examples

The result of a mondegreen can be humorous or nonsensical, and they are often shared widely. Famous examples include the following:

Mondegreen examples
Song
  • Correct phrase
  • Misinterpretation
“Sweet Dreams” by The Eurythmics Sweet dreams are made of this Sweet dreams are made of cheese
“We Built This City” by Starship We built this city on rock and roll We built this city on sausage rolls
“Tangled up in Blue” by Bob Dylan And when finally the bottom fell out I became withdrawn And when finally the bottom fell out of a canewood drum
“I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash I can see clearly now the rain has gone I can see clearly now Lorraine has gone
“While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” by Nahum Tate While shepherds watched their flocks by night While shepherds washed their socks by night
Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town He’s making a list and checking it twice He’s making a list of chicken and rice

There are some similar terms that describe other types of misspeaking, such as:

  • Freudian slip: A Freudian slip, named after the famous psychotherapist, is believed to be a slip of the tongue that reveals your true unconscious feelings. For example, in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Peralta accidentally calls Captain Holt “Dad,” which is used to humorously suggest he looks up to Holt as a father figure.
  • Spoonerism: Named after the Reverend Charles Spooner, who was prone to this, a spoonerism involves the accidental (sometimes deliberate) swapping of initial sounds of two words (e.g., “Which one of us in our hearts has not felt a half-warmed fish” [instead of half-formed wish]).
  • Malapropism: Mrs. Malaprop is a character in Sheridan’s The Rivals, and her tendency to use the wrong word gives rise to this phenomenon. One of her own malapropisms serves well as an example when she declares someone to be the “very pineapple of politeness” when she means “pinnacle.”
  • Eggcorn: This is the use of a mistaken word or phrase because it sounds similar to the correct form (e.g., “For all intensive purposes” instead of “For all intents and purposes”).

Frequently asked questions about mondegreen

What is an example of a mondegreen?

The name mondegreen is actually an example of a mondegreen itself. The author Sylvia Wright misheard the lyrics of an old Scottish song, “They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray and laid him on the green” and thought that the song said that both the Earl and “Lady Mondegreen” had been slain.

Other examples include “We built this city on sausage rolls” (“We built this city on rock and roll” in the song by Starship) or “Take your teeth out” (“Chiqitita,” by Abba)

What is the difference between an eggcorn and a mondegreen?

An eggcorn is the mishearing of a word or phrase that sounds like the original but is mistaken (e.g., “For all intensive purposes” instead of “For all intents and purposes”), where the misheard version makes sense, but not humorously so.

A mondegreen makes no sense, but the result is some amusing nonsense (e.g., “While shepherds washed their socks by night,” instead of “While shepherds watched their flocks by night”).

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Trevor Marshall

Trevor has a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Language, an MSc in Applied Social Studies, and Qualified Teacher Status in the UK. He has worked as a probation officer, social worker, and teacher. Having taught English Literature and Language in two schools in Prague for 15 years, he is now freelancing as a photographer and writer.