It’s a Doggy-Dog World
This essay isn’t about dogs, or the world. So if that’s what you’re looking for, sorry.
I’m writing about words and the fun that can be had with them. A little bit of grammar and spelling and word usage stuff, so if you hate that topic, this won’t be for you either.
So, for the perhaps one or two who are still here, this post was sparked by a question posed in another essay, regarding the phrase “if you think [X], you’ve got another thing coming” and someone kindly responded that it should be “... another think coming” but explained that the phrase had over time become corrupted.
I thought that was an interesting comment. I have to allow that corrupted is a fair enough description.
But it’s actually something a little bit more, which is the fun part.
Like the title of this essay, “another thing coming” is what is called an eggcorn.
That’s a word or phrase that is often misheard in spoken English, which then gets translated into writing. Other examples are “all intensive purposes” which should correctly be “all intents and purposes” and the namesake, “eggcorn” for “acorn.”
For those who aren’t familiar, this page provides additional background material, if interested.
Mondegreens is the same thing, only it’s used mostly to describe misheard song lyrics,
Such as thinking Jimi sang “ ‘scuse me, while I kiss this guy” in the song Kiss the Sky. Which, he totally did!
[video:https://youtu.be/hc94WYpopfE]
But to be fair, he did this only after it became a thing, going along with the joke.
As for another thing coming...maybe sometimes it’s not an eggcorn. Maybe the writer really means it... that there’s a whole new thing coming. Not just to think something new, but actually a whole new thing might be in the cards. So look sharp. (Card shark is another common eggcorn. Originally it was card sharp. But card shark is so common now, it’s considered correct.
Eggcorns are ubiquitous. A coworker once confessed to me that she grew up thinking the original Star Trek crew were on their way “to Boleygo, where no one has gone before.” Boleygo was, she assumed, the name of a planet. She was mortified to learn in her 20s that she’d had it wrong for so many years.
Do you have any personal or favorite or funny eggcorns? If so, I’d like to hear them. 
Comments
Cool subject
I remember hearing all kinds of ‘dirty’ lyrics attributed to Louie Louie that were probably enhanced by the subject and rhythm of the song itself … and teenage imagination.
[video:https://youtu.be/8XzRnLxYieM]
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/jack-ely-louie-louie-...
Thank you janis
I appreciate you reading and stopping in! I’ll have to look into the controversy over this song, hadn’t heard about that.
never under-estimate
the teenage imagination.
Apparently my parents did mine... This is true what you say about Louie Louie. There were a couple lines attributed to slang meaning having sex, which almost surely were not there, but possibly intentionally slurred to let than teenage horomone filled imagination run with it... There was "_____ all the girls" that was quite well slurred and unintelligible, and "... every night at ten, _______ again" (we did it, laid her, several variations were around.
My nomination for the best Louie Louie though is Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, however I just looked and could not find a link at Youtube. Maybe the Louie Louie people took it down.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
After listening to some of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
that is available on you tube I wished I could hear their version of Louie Louie. What a trip they are, never heard of them before.
Janis they were great
They were the band in Magical Mystery Tour! Vivian Stanshall the main man was hilarious, friends with the Monty Python Guys (Eric Idle, etc.) and the Beatles back 'in the days'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hcZ4s9cvpw
Canyons of your mind - Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (1968)
Vivian Stanshall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Stanshall
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Definitely Dada!
They are really interesting, to say the least. Thanks dystopian
When I was a little kid
I thought Carly Simon had flies in her coffee.
..
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Lol - good one Zoebear
When I listen to the song, I can hear it as flies.
It’s funny, how the brain fills in the blanks.
I found out that it wasn't flies
In the most embarrassing way too. I was 11 years old and me and my girlfriend were in the car singing the song when her older brother heard me and asked me to repeat it, so I did. Everyone in the car burst out laughing. Even the adults. I was mortified.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I can imagine ... sounds like my coworker and Boleygo
She told a similar story about being laughed at by all her college friends when she said the famous Star Trek opening line wrong, and then wanting to disappear into the floor from embarrassment.
This is a pretty funny video interpretation of that song.
[video:https://youtu.be/j13oJajXx0M]
I can hear 'flies' for the first time ; ).
An eggcorn of my very own.
When I was in high school I was saved from terminal embarrassment because someone else was picked to read aloud a passage that would have been disastrous for me. The passage had the word "misled" in it. I knew what the word meant from its context in books I had read but had never heard anyone pronounce it. I thought it was a word pronounced "myzled" which meant fooled or conned. Of course I knew the spoken word "misled" but hadn't made the connection to its spelling. When Cheryl Conklin read it aloud in class I was surprised and so very grateful that I had been spared. You remember how huge embarrassments were in your teen years? The fact that I remember the mistake and the name of the girl who read the passage after about 68 years shows what an effect the incident had on me.
Thanks CS for not only reminding me of the incident but of enlarging my vocabulary with two new words.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
I'm smiling at your memory, thanks.
It's cute, funny and endearing
Great story polkageist
Thanks for reading, and thank you for sharing that.
in my experience discussing this with others,
"mizzled" (as i thought) and/or "myzled" is the single most common example of an English word that a person reads incorrectly, even though they're familiar with the actual spoken word.
another one is "awry", which I and at least one or two other people I've met pronounced to rhyme with "gory". in my own defense, there was in those days a defenseman for the Boston Bruins named Don Awrie, whose name was pronounced that way.
i too had a close shave during a read-aloud session, when someone else read the section with the word "melancholy". that word I hadn't ever heard out loud, and assumed was pronounced with the primary and secondary accents on the second and fourth syllables, and a good flat short "a". i even told my dad that i had politely not corrected her pronunciation. he was pleased then to correct me.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Never heard "Melancholy Baby", eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKJi_X9WpHQ
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
not in grade 7
i only made one "mistake" on a spelling test in all of grade 7. i was drifting off into a boredom-induced stupor, and when the teacher said, "conquer", i spelled "concur".
what can ya do.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I was always grateful to John Fogerty,
letting me know there was a bathroom on the right.
Oh, and then there was the shortstop for the San Diego Padres...every time the announcer read the lineup at the beginning of the game, it was "Numberelevenenzo Hernandez!"
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
LOL!
I always wondered why a song would include directions to the bathroom!
Too funny... thanks!
You beat me to the bathroom!
LOL!
Great essay, CZ. I'm a bit of a grammar nerd and am thrilled to have learned two new words from you! "Mondegreen" has a nice ring to it.
The embarrassment of the corrections
My friend and I went to see the movie Aselum. It was about people who got committed to mental hospitals.
Asylum
I've been racking my brain for the song I got the lyrics wrong on. I was showing off to my brothers while playing the song and I tied a string around the doorknob so the door would open when they got to the "open the door" part of it. The words were nowhere close to saying that. Boy did I feel ' tupid. Maybe I'll remember it.
Fun essay. Funny comments.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
My little sister came walking through the
living room when she was pretty little and the Police’s Living in the Material World comes on MTV and she starts belting out “I spit in the cereal, girl”. She also thought Bobby Fuller (I) Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won.
She was such a funny funny funny little girl!
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
The lawn always wins, doesn't it?
At least when you're battling it with an electric mower whose battery isn't big enough.
I love this one!
I think I’m going to get a T-shirt made for my husband that says “I fought the lawn, and the lawn won.”
That is hilarious.
(Granted, he might not find it as amusing as I do.
)
I have one
Snoopy, with a rake, dizzy stars spinning around his head.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I wonder if a lot of people screwed up that one?
I honestly couldn’t figure out why a little kid would come up with something like that but my brother John says a lot of people did. I laughed because I couldn’t believe anyone could be so silly. My little sister was just a little thing, under 5. Her I understand.
If grown adults did it too, that makes it even funnier!!!
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Where did you get it? I know the perfect
person to give it one to!
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
My brother gave it to me for christmas decades ago.
, I used it for dirty jobs, the last several years, and then last year, cut out the cute snoopy illustration and turned the rest of it into rags.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
Is this it?
What a great T-shirt. Sadly I can’t find any for sale anywhere.
I wants it.
I wants it too :-)
But maybe in a different color. Lol.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
You probably can have a printer
use and crop this image (less wrinkled) to print onto a tee shirt. I guess you’d have to find out if it’s okay to use the digital image first.
I want it too. If you had one printed you
couldn’t use Snoopy, could you?
Apparently this song has csused mass confusion for a while. Patty wasn’t even in kindergarten when she said it. But she had the words to Tennessee Jed and Lookin’ Out My Back Door down!!!
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
As a little girl in school my Mom
proudly sang, "America, America, God shed his grapes on me!"
And then there was the sorrowful song about the bear that we sang in church, "Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear."
Thanks for this fun.
And "Round John Virgin" :-D
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
now you know why all the great songs posted here
I never understand, but love dearly, espically the early blues songs. I am so grateful for everyone who includes the text of the lyrics to the songs they post.
My mind is even worse screwed up, because I sometimes have my fun with German word plays and would like to share that fun. But when I try to translate, the fun is over and it ends up to be a total mess. Nothing seems to me more difficult than to translate snark, insider lingo, and word play's sarcasm in acceptable, no-pain causing ways into another language and with it culture.
In my little family, that once was, my husband's niece from a french-speaking African country (she herself raised therefore in the remnants of a former french colonial school system) lived with us in Washington DC. She started to learn English through a community college in Maryland nearby, while working in a 7-11 to get herself a little pocket money.
I remember her telling me that her 'shuddle' was so terrible and I wondered what she meant. It took a while til I 'got' that she meant her 'schedule', ie to manage work at the bottom hourly rates, school classes and being a 'maid' to her uncle, who conveniently overlooked to pay her something for everything she did for him. ...
But the real fun started when my former mother-in-law (born around 1900 under German colonial rule in the french-speaking part of her African home country with around three elemnetary school years of education) started to try to translate her native dialect as the only language she could speak (the dialect didn't exist as a written language, only the bible was translated and that book got lost). The translation into sign language to make herself clear about what she wanted to say was sometimes 'more than hilarious', ie I can't even describe it without blushing and certainly won't try. She was a very strong woman and her granddaughter, ie the niece I am talking about above, as well. I honor them both in my memories. Everybody is dead by now.
My 'shuddle' tells me that at these hours I need more coffee and hope that your 'shuddles' are not too busy and hectic.
Good morning, good people.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Deep Purple's Highway Star
I had to listen to it again because I always thought that when he sang "I'm a highway star," He was singing "I'm always stoned." Those were the days when my version would have made sense. It was years before I found out that my version was wrong.
But I still love Highway Star.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr9ie2J2690]
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Fanatic.
Proudly answered FANatic to the question. The entire class erupted in laughter-I tried to play it off as a joke answer. The teach didn’t buy it.
Right answer, well , you know.
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
We followed a rock band one night....
...doing our lower key (and quieter) old time folky stuff. Someone came up to the stage and asked (as we were playing) "Where did the band go?"
My bandmate answered, "I've got the banjo out in the car". Of course he doesn't hear to well.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
"Of course he doesn't hear to well."
Do you know of any banjo players that do?
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
I was babysitting one evening,
listening to the radio while doing homework (the kids were asleep), and decided to call up (on a landline!) to make a request.
After asking the deejay to play Our Love is King, one of my absolute favorite songs of the time, I waited breathlessly to hear it.
And waited.
And waited.
He never played it.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why ... because the name of the song was actually:
[VIDEO:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljIQo1OHkTI]
I'm not sure what's funnier, though: that, or the fact that a colleague in my first job couldn't figure out what was being advertised on a poster she was looking at.
"What's a feesta?" she wondered.
Of course she knew full well what a fiesta is ... her brain just refused to read it as such!
I used to pronounce...
Placebo as "Place Bow" because I had never actually heard anyone use the word. That happened to me a lot as a kid when I'd use a word I had read without ever hearing it.
I will say though, knowing how to pronounce "Antidisestablishmentarianism" properly was seen as a mark of intelligence among actors in LA in the 90's... Had to teach it to a surprising number of people. Then I had to explain it's a pompous word to defend the COE, and they stopped being impressed by it.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeS3oqqQ2Gg]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I remember that as a kid, antidisestablishmentarianism was
sort of required trivia knowledge at a very young age (grade school?) and the eventual uproad when it was supplanted by pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which pretty much nobody ever bothered with, which I think was probably because the pronunciation was such a bear.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
My kids impressed a few people...
But they seemed to be the only ones in their class who know it. But hey, in the spirit of old things that still work...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om-lrndZW0M]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Two words I mispronounced because I'd never heard them spoken
1. Boatswain
2. Albeit
I pronounced the first one just as it's written but because of a British quirk in the English language, I didn't know it was pronounced "Bowsen"
The second one I got wrong because I'm an idiot and pronounced it as "All-Bite"
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
For me it is a typo...
The older I get, the sloppier my thinking gets. At least I attribute it to age because I don't remember always being this way.
If I'm trying to recall a name, I find one that starts with the same first letter and seem to think it is close enough. When I type, it gets worse. Around the third or fourth letter, I lose interest in the word I am typing. My brain and fingers no longer function as a team, and I abandon the word I'm typing to turn into whatever is close enough: They for the, lock for look, thing for think, and don't even get me started on my aversion to proof reading. I blame a lot of this on my job which entailed writing long grant proposals for bureaucrats. The rule was to use their own words back to them so they would know what you meant. Eventually, I couldn't stand to even look at the document let alone read it thoroughly enough to proof what my eyes were seeing.
Closer to the point of this very informative and entertaining diary, my MIL did a number on a very old song. I've known my husband since 9th grade. Anyway she heard "Who Wrote the Book of Love" as who's got the blue cow now". Go figure.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Anyone else calling people multiple names?
Hey, John. No that's not right.. Luke, Mark, Steven, oh hell you know who I mean. Adam's second kid.
My grandmother used to do that and now it's my turn. Sheesh this age thing. I knew I'd get old, but didn't think it'd be when I was this young.
Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.
Yes, when I was young
I sometimes went through all the kids names to get to the one for the child I was speaking to. I've done it a few times with grandkids, who are offended, and protest. Maybe it's not an age thing.
Thanks for all the fun and funny comments everyone!
I’m at work today and cannot respond to everyone individually, but I truly appreciate all of your contributions! Many good laughs and great personal stories. Keep ‘em coming!
Love is like popsicles or so my high school friend thought!
Why, why is love like popsicles? If you get too much you get to high. On popsicles? Anyone try this?
O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.
Just in case, I didn't see this mentioned
The original is a Cuban song, I saw Jose do it live once, he is spectacular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyQOq4MAdY
JOSE FELICIANO ~ Guantanamera ~
==
Many thought the song said something else. I cannot find on youtube the original One Ton Tomato I have somehwere on a cassette taped off the Dr. Demento show which was hilarious, there have been one ton of versions...
One Ton Tomato https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzYfDa901Ho
William Fosterr in concert at Mosaic in WIchita KS.
===
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu6pqotCqFs
One Ton Tomato - Crabmeat Thompson -
(I liked the won ton tomato line)
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
LOL!
I remember listening to this song (my parents had it on vinyl, IIRC) and having no clue what he was singing. I don't think I heard "one ton tomato," though "wonton" might have been close.
And this all reminds me of a Dave Barry column from the early '90s that DDG actually found for me:
The Lion May Sleep Tonight, But Readers are Restless
It's about people's most-hated songs, but if you read all the way through, there are some hilarious eggcorns, too!
Ain't No Woman Like The One-Eyed Gott
LOL!
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
I LOL'd at that, too.
Worst Songs....
He missed one:
[video:https://youtu.be/l-c2fu0gDjQ]
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
Aiyeeeeeee!
Thanks for that earworm ... not!
I work with a lot of young people
And as Valentines Day was approaching one of them jokingly suggested we should sell cards about making babies and I began singing the woman's part of the song. Everybody just burst out laughing even though they had NO idea where it came from.
Ah, good times. Lol.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier