Throwback Thursday: Uh-Oh, They Got Lady Mondegreen!

One of my most popular stories, from one year ago

Back when I was writing a humor blog for Reuters, I created my own cast of resident characters. One of them was a seamstress who was quite skilled at her craft. She also had a sideline, mediating sensitive disputes between opposing parties.

The sputtering blue neon sign above the door of her cluttered little shop described her services quite well: “Alterations and Altercations.”

I’m not asking you to laugh at that. Who would? But you do need to understand that I play with my words like a two-year-old plays with its porridge. Pity my poor family. Pity our poor language.

A friend once asked my very favorite word, and the question stopped me cold. I didn’t have one. She said she knew someone whose favorite was “marmalade,” and I thought, crap, I wish I had gotten to that one first!

Since marmalade was already taken, I settled on “festoon.” which I have used in a number of my stories. Part of me still wishes I had gone with “frigate,” but it’s pretty hard to use that one what with the War of 1812 being over, so I guess it all worked out for the best.

(A generic frigate)

One of the missions of my old blog was to resuscitate classic words from the trash bin of linguistic evolution. These words had worked hard and they deserved another chance, in my opinion.

In a first draft of one of my 5 a.m. Stories, which touched on covering crime for The Indianapolis News back in the day, I used words such as hooligans, rapscallions, scalawags and reprobates.

A writer friend who helps edit my stuff to protect me from embarrassing myself, rejected those words with a note to me: “Maybe it’s because I know you, Bob, but I’m not buying it. I don’t believe this guy actually does use words like that.”

“I do,” I shouted. “I swear I do!”

Taking her advice, I reluctantly edited out most of the obscure words, but I left rapscallion intact. I also added miscreants, which she hadn’t explicitly banned. It seemed like a fair trade.

One word I have tried very hard to reintroduce into our modern language is “huzzah!” What a spontaneous outpouring of exhilaration! According to Merriam-Webster, the first recorded use of huzzah in print was in 1573. That is the same year in which “dank” and “muskmelon” made their debut in print. I’m not making this up.

Not to make too big a deal of this, but the thesaurus tells me modern substitutes for huzzah include “hot dog!” and “whoopee!” Please try to picture our Founding Fathers, the ink still drying on the Declaration of Independence, high-fiving and saying, “Hot Dog, Jefferson, we got it done! Whoopee!”

My wife and I have had a thing going for years, where we intentionally misuse words for our own amusement. We mix up anecdote and antidote, mute and moot, piranha and pariah, stuff like that. We are adults, and we know what we’re doing.

Lately, though, Barbara has greeted such linguistic playfulness with a worried scowl.

“How am I supposed to know if you’re getting dementia? I need to be able to tell when that happens to you,” she says, apparently suspecting my time is just around the corner.

Hmmmm. I am picturing a new clinical test for diagnosing dementia:

1. Help! Queen Cleopatra has been bitten by a snake! Someone get an anecdote!

2. Opie regaled the audience with antidotes about growing up in Mayberry.

3. The prison warden showered Lamar with Folsom praise.

4. I'm stuck in fulsome prison, and time keeps dragging on...

Here is where I’m going with this. I know, it’s about fricking time, isn’t it? I keep a small collection of unusual words which I love and use as often as I can. I would like to share them here, and ask that you reach for them when you are able, just for a change.

When you finish reading today’s story, please use the comments section below to share your own favorite words. Of course, it would be great if you used some of mine in your comments, too. That’s how this word sharing thing works.

Absquatulate: I first came across this one in  a collection of letters written by Kurt Vonnegut. It means to slink away or abscond. I have used it in at least one of my 5 a.m. Stories, after which a very smart reader posted it on Facebook as her “word of the day.”

Portmanteau: A large suitcase. I think I first saw it in a Jules Verne novel, and I never forgot it. Unfortunately, these days, when I check into a hotel and ask the desk clerk to “have my portmanteau brought to my room forthwith,” the thing just sits in the lobby for days.

Incidentally, portmanteau is a combination of two French words, and today it has appropriately come to mean a new word that combines two other words. Like brunch (breakfast and lunch), motel (motor and hotel) and spork (spoon and fork).

 (A portmanteau)

Growlix: There is no substitute for this wonderful word, because growlix is ALREADY a substitute. It’s the random assortment of symbols that are used in writing instead of a curse word. Let’s start using it, and #$^%*#*@ the people who don’t know what it means!

Gandy Dancer: Good luck finding a place to use this one in 2023, but it’s still a lot of fun to say. These were the guys who maintained the railroads back In the day, at least until they absquatulated from their jobs.

(Some dandy gandy dancers)

And finally, easily my favorite of the lot, Mondegreen: Have you ever heard a poem or a song and misunderstood the lyrics and carried the error with you for years?

Back in the 1950s, a woman named Sylvia Wright wrote an essay about how when she was a child, her mother had regularly read her a Scottish ballad containing the line, “Oh, they have slain the Earl o' Moray and laid him on the green.”

But what young Sylvia unfortunately heard was, “Oh, they have slain the Earl o' Moray and Lady Mondegreen.”

Sylvia was a grown woman before she discovered her mistake. She was so embarrassed, she coined the word mondegreen to help others deal with the shame.

Mondegreen is for all of you who listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival singing, “there’s a bad moon on the rise,” and were sure they were saying, “there’s a bathroom on the right.” Or you - you know who you are – who listened to Jimi Hendrix sing, “excuse me, while I kiss the sky,” but thought you heard, “excuse me, while I kiss this guy.”

I have my own true personal mondegreen epiphany.

For fully half a century, I listened to the “California Dreaming” line, “you know the preacher likes the cold,” and thought the “Mamas and Papas” were singing, “you know the preacher lights the coals.” Yes, I was a sad mondegreen victim. I don’t care. I think my version is better than the real one, and I still sing it my way.

After all, you can gandy dance to it, so, huzzah for me! Let’s party like it’s 1573!