Example:
My first awareness of this came about when my mother was reading out loud from a letter she'd received from my godmother, her sister, who lived in London, England. I would have been about eight.
Mum read that my aunt and her family were having their annual "hols" in Weston-Super-Mare that summer.
I was green with envy. I thought: what an adventure, riding out to the west on great big horses.
"Why can't we do that?" I asked her.
"Because we're in Ireland and they're in England!" my mother probably explained.
"But there are lots of big horses here too, we don't have to go to England!"
At this point I was ignored I would think, I was one of those kids who would try the patience of anyone within earshot, always asking question after question.
But the visions in my head of Auntie Norah, Uncle Michael and their two small daughters galloping off to the magical west on their super mares never left me.
Even today, every time I see or hear Weston-Super-Mare I can still picture the four of them, hair flying, laughing joyfully, cantering over hill and dale chasing after Roy Rogers and Trigger - for that was the only west I knew then.
The Wild West.
Oh, and happy trails to you!
I ceI certainly did that. I do it now. More recently it has been reading signs wrong as we zoom along the road. My fave from last week's trip home was to see a sign for a town I thought was called "Regretsville". Turns out it was Rogersville but I like my version.r
ReplyDeleteOh I love "Regretsville" Jan! There should be a song. Probably a C & W. I'd like to leave Regretsville on a horse, etc. LOL
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I am reminded of two small villages here in County Antrim:
ReplyDeleteAhohill or Ahoghill known unofficially as A Hog Hill
and
Portglenone, known as Port Glen 1.
I've been remiss in not getting over here more often, it's my loss.
ReplyDeleteMany, including myself, misinterpret music lyrics, and there's even a word for it: mondegreen, perhaps coined by Jon Carroll, the columnist for the SF Chronicle.
The easiest example is Jimi Hendricks singing "'scuse me while I kiss this guy"....
I've been embarrassed by this a number of times...just a reminder to keep laughing...Happy continued blogging to you.
ReplyDeleteDoes this qualify? When my son was about 5 or 6, he couldn't wait to "see the rabbits" at the end of our trip. As he was told several times that we were on our way to grandmom's in Cedar Rapids! Dee a
ReplyDeleteI tend to attach weird scenarios to places I've never been to. Nashville makes me think of lots of people gnashing their teeth. Winnipeg makes me think of an old lady hanging out the washing. That sort of thing. Crazy, huh?
ReplyDeleteGM:
ReplyDeleteMy eyes popped when I thought I read Pog Mo Hon, LOL.
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SFM:
ReplyDeleteWe have quite a collection of mondegreens in our family. Most notably "All those parasites" from the BeeGees - "Almost Paradise" LOL.
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E:
ReplyDeleteYes me too. Another clunker of mine is nearly worth it own blogpost.
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Dee:
ReplyDeleteI love it. I hope he keeps it.
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Nick:
ReplyDeleteOh another one like me. As I drive through Quebec I translate, literally, all the town signs and hoot and holler my way through as I envision them under their new anglicised names, lol.
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Once I spotted a praying mantis clinging to our window. I pointed it out to my three-year-old daughter, who called it a praying Baptist. We've never called a praying mantis anything but a praying Baptist since that day almost four decades ago.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good one Linda!!
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Hilarious! I wish that I could see you on a super mare with your hair flying and singing cow girl songs.
ReplyDeleteI do that with song lyrics a lot. And I remember telling my young son we were taking clothes to give to Goodwill (do they have that charitable organization in Canada?) and he thought it was literally a guy named Will.
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