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| Book cover courtesy of www.amazon.com |
I first read this book with my
daughter when she was 4 or 5 years old. It's about a little girl named
Sage who is home sick from school and calls her friend to get the list of
spelling words the teacher had given out that day. The result is hysterical,
both my daughter and I loved the book; I even used it several years later
as a lesson plan when we were homeschooling.
Our recent classroom discussion
about Wernicke's aphasia got me thinking again about how we sometimes use words totally out of context either because
we've misheard or misinterpreted the original word. For example, we all
know about the version of the Pledge of Allegiance in which “I led the pigeons
to the flag” is recited instead of “I pledge allegiance to the flag.” Well it turns out there is a word for this
phenomena. It’s called a mondegreen.
According to Merriam-Webster
dictionary, a mondegreen is a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of
something said or sung; for example, “very close veins” is a mondegreen for “varicose veins”. Mondegreens are a sort of aural malapropism,
instead of saying the wrong word, you hear the wrong word. Some other examples are “sleep in heavenly
peas” instead of “sleep in heavenly peace”; “Olive, the other reindeer” instead
of “all of the other reindeer”; and “sweet dreams are made of cheese” instead
of “sweet dreams are made of this.” (You
can find links at the end of the article to some websites with more
mondegreens, etc.)
I was curious to find out if there
was a relationship to a particular function of the brain (or malfunction) related to
the use of mondegreens, malapropisms, and other misperceptions of speech. Sadly, according to an article published
January 8, 2014, by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, no scientific studies to date have been
conducted to examine this phenomenon.
The article, “Mondegreens and Soramimi as a Method to Induce
Misperceptions of Speech Content – Influence of Familiarity, Wittiness, and
Language Competence” is the proposal to study language processing using mondegreens and Soramimi which are “a
valuable tool to induce plasticity within the auditory system.” There also seems to be a connection to a
theory by Hermann von Helmholtz regarding the physiology of perception which
basically states that the eye is relatively poorly made, optically speaking, and
that our vision is a result of making assumptions and conclusions from
incomplete data, based on previous experiences. The authors of
the study hypothesize that what we hear is sometimes a result of making
assumptions and conclusions from incomplete data, based on previous experiences
and thus our perception of the word could affect the way it is heard.
Glossary
Eggcorn - a term, coined in
2003, from an on-line discussion about a woman who misheard the word acorn as eggcorn. Eggcorns differ
from mondegreens because while the swapped words sound the same and the
listener makes a connection in meaning it doesn’t create a new meaning. Examples of eggcorns are “chomping at the
bit” instead of “champing at the bit” and “mute point” instead of “moot point”.
Malapropism - an unintentionally
humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase. Yogi Berra, legendary baseball player,
manager, and coach, was famous for his malapropisms including, “It’s like déjà
vu all over again”.
Mondegreen – a word or phrase that
results from a mishearing of something said or sung.
Soramimi – a Japanese word whose
literal meaning is ‘fancy hearing.’
Usually refers to musical lyrics that are misheard as nonsensical
Japanese.
Eggcorns
Your post was extremely interesting to read. I even learn new vocabulary and concepts. To bad that their are not many research about the "function of the brain (or malfunction) related to the use of mondegreens, malapropisms, and other misperceptions of speech." The brain is complex and researchers are slowly trying to unravel the mystery. Hopefully, the more research is done, they might be able to identify what areas of the brain specialize in something.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that what we see with our eyes, our brain is already making assumptions and categorizing. We do it without thinking and it affects our perception of the world. If we see something that our brain cannot comprehend or categorize it into something we recognize, we are forced to stop and think about what we are seeing and try to figure it out. Our brain is wired to respond fast and like shortcuts when thinking.