On this date in 1944 the song “Mairzy Doats” by the Merry Macs sat atop the pop music charts. The lyrics are deceptive:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?

Then we get a few lines that make sense:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

The song takes advantage of a phenomenon sometimes called “mondegreens” and sometimes “egg corns.” People mis-hear words, often song lyrics, with often hilarious results:

• “The ants are my friend, they’re blowin’ in the wind” is a mondegreen of “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” by Bob Dylan.
• “And there’s a wino down the road/I should’ve stole his Oreos” should be “And as we wind on down the road/Our shadows taller than our souls” in Led Zeppellin’s “Stairway to Heaven”
• “There’s a bathroom on the right” is a famous mis-hearing of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
• One person misheard Will Smith’s “Gettin jiggy with it” as “Kick a chicken with it.”
• And a line in Nelly Furtado’s “Turn Off the Light,” “I looked above the other day,” sounded to one listener like “I licked a bird the other day.”

I once mentioned in class that I didn’t have much time for “points grubbers,” kids who will argue at excessive length for one or two points on a quiz. I discovered later that at least one student thought I was saying “point scrubbers,” which, actually, isn’t that far off.

What words or phrases have YOUR students misheard?

Posted Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:01:14 and filed under Language at Play, Bloopers. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.