Slips of the Ear: Homonyms, Oronyms, Homographs, and Mondegreens

 Zoë Sharp

I like unintentional humour, and a good deal of amusement can be had from slips of the ear—words misheard, misinterpreted, or simply misunderstood. I’d no idea, though, until I started looking into the subject, how many different words there were to describe this phenomenon, so I thought I’d share some trivia with you.

Homonyms

First up is a Homonym, which is when two or more words have the same sound or spelling, but differ in meaning, from the Greek ‘same name’.

A nice example comes from ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND:

 

“Mine is a long and sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

 

“It is a long tail, certainly,”’ said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse’s tail; “but why do you call it sad?”

Homonyms are closely related to Homographs and Homophones.

A Homograph is one word that is spelled exactly the same as another, but which not only has a different meaning, but often a different derivation as well. A Homograph can also be a Hetronym, from the Greek ‘other named’. A good example is the word ‘sewer’, meaning both a place for sewage, and someone who sews. The derivation of the former is from the Latin, meaning related to water, but the derivation of the latter is from the Sanskrit meaning thread or string.

 

Occasionally, Homographs are spelled identically, but pronounced differently according to the meaning, hence:

 

“When I tear my fingernail, I shed a tear.”

Whereas Homophones are two words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings. Such as:

 

“I shed a tear as I watched him climb onto the top tier of the podium.”

 

Although, come to think of it, both Homographs and Homophones could fall into the overall category of Homonyms.

 

Confused? Stick around.

Oronyms

Then we get to Oronyms, which is apparently a word invented by Gyles Brandreth, and quite frankly I wouldn’t put it past him. An Oronym is a sequence of words that sound the same as another, with endless comic possibilities. The brain hears speech not as individual words but as an overall flow which it has to try to interpret, and what with accents and mispronunciation and slang, it’s hardly surprising that occasionally we get it wrong.

 

“The stuffy nose can lead to problems.”

“The stuff he knows can lead to problems.”

 

Actually, one of the best examples I can give of Oronyms at work is the Macho Grande courtroom scene in Airplane II: The Sequel movie:

Cause for confusion

 

Then there are simply many words that are easily confused, and among the most common are:

 

Accept – to receive or take in

Except – other than

 

Lead – metal

Led – past tense of to lead someone or something in a given direction

 

Rein – means of controlling a horse

Reign – the rule of a monarch

 

Principal – the head of a school, person being protected by a bodyguard

Principle – a rule or guideline

 

Throne – a ceremonial chair of a monarch, bishop, or similar

Thrown – propel with force through the air by movement of the hand and arm

Mondegreens

When it comes to song lyrics, the human ear has even more fun and misinterpreting words. The mishearing of words in a song is so common that American writer Sylvia Wright coined a term for it taken directly from her own experiences when as a child she misheard the words of the ballad ‘The Bonny Earl O’Moray’:

 

“Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands

Oh, where hae ye been?

They hae slain the Earl O’Moray

And Lady Mondegreen”

 

The last line should actually have been ‘And laid him on the green’ but for years Ms Wright believed that the unknown Lady Mondegreen had met a similar fate as the Earl O’Moray and came up with the name Mondegreen to describe it.

 

Since then, of course, the practice has been rife, with one of my childhood favourites being the Kenny Rogers song, ‘You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille’. For years I heard this as:

 

“You picked a fine time to leave me, loose heel.

Four hundred children and a croc in the fields”

 

The Jimi Hendrix song, ‘Purple Haze’ contains the line:

 

“Excuse me while I kiss this guy”

 

So many people thought this was the genuine line, that he actually sang the alternative version in concert.

 

And, of course, who can forget The Eurythmics’:

 

“Sweet dreams are made of cheese”

 

I recall a friend telling me about the visually impaired ursine she heard about in church:

 

“Gladly, the cross-eyed bear”

 

And another mentioning that her mum used to swear there was a line in ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ by The Beatles, that went:

 

“The girl with colitis goes by”

 

Or that other classic by The Beatles:

 

“She’s got a chicken to ride”

 

But I think my favourite in recent years has to be the modified lyrics to the Bond theme, ‘Skyfall’. Let’s have a rousing chorus of:

 

“Make a tri-fle, make a crum-ble

Build my cake tall

And we’ll eat it all together…”

All it needs is cake. Now, doesn’t that make you feel better? So, what are your favourite examples of any of the above? Let’s hear ’em!

 

No Word of the Week this week. I think you’ve had quite enough.

PLAYING WITH WORDS AGAIN

Zoë Sharp

 

It comes as no surprise to those who know me that I love playing with words. My dictionary is falling apart and decorated with Post-It notes of words that would make great titles, names, or just ones I love the sound or shape of. Looking up anything always takes me longer than I expect because I get very easily side-tracked. I collect weird meanings and derivations of unusual words and phrases.

 

But it’s not just unusual words that fascinate me. I love common words with unusual meanings, or slight difference in spellings that change everything. (A while ago, I was sent an email imploring me to sign a partition.) When I started making a note of some words that caught my eye for this post, I quickly filled pages of notes, and then had to force myself to stop. Here are some of my favourites, in no particular order.

 

Homophones

In UK English, we have both practice and practise—noun and verb. So, you could be practising your backhand during tennis practice.

 

And although in UK English we would ask someone to use their best judgement when making a decision, if the context referred to British legal proceedings, the spelling would be judgment, as in US English.

 

One that often seems to cause confusion is callous, meaning to be insensitive or to have a cruel disregard for others, and can also mean hardened and thickened, but callus particularly means a thickening, or a hard thickened area, of skin or bark. So, someone might have either callous hands, or callused hands—or even callous, callused hands—but the meanings would be very different!

 

While androgynous means having both male and female characteristics, androgenous means having only male offspring.

 

Everyone knows what angry means, but angary is a legal term meaning a belligerent’s right to seize and use neutral or other property, subject to compensation.

 

Pursue means to harass or persecute—or, in Scots law, to prosecute—and Spenser spelt it pursew with the same meaning. But written persue, it is not only another alternative spelling, but also means a track of blood. (Spenser again) from the act of piercing.

 

Consent might be to agree or comply, but concent is a harmony of sounds or voices.

 

The meaning of blanket is familiar, but blanquet is a variety of pear, blanquette is a ragout of chicken or veal made with a white sauce, and bloncket means grey. (That bloke Spenser gets everywhere.)

 

A lake is not only a body of water, but also a small stream or channel, or a reddish pigment made from combining a dye with metallic hydroxide to give the colour carmine. Spell it laik and it becomes a Northern English term meaning to sport or play, or be unemployed, and lakh means the number 100,000 in India and Pakistan, especially when referring to rupees, or an infinitely vast number.

 

While a block is a mass of stone or wood, a bloc is a combination of parties, nations, or other units to achieve a common purpose.

 

One that always used to confuse me as a kid was the difference between demure, meaning chaste or modest, and demur meaning to object or hesitate.

 

And I know for a fact I’ve accidentally mixed up defuse, to take the fuse out of a bomb or, according to Shakespeare (and what did he know?) to disorder, with diffuse, meaning widely spread or wordy, or also to pour out all around; to scatter.

A clue might be anything that points to the solution to a mystery, but it’s derived from clew, being the ball of thread that guided Ariadne through the labyrinth, as well as being the lower corner of a sail, or one of the cords by which a hammock is suspended.

 

To be discreet means to be careful of intentionally unobtrusive, but discrete means distinct or unconnected.

 

Another I keep coming across in my recent reading is reign, meaning to rule, being used in the context of somebody being given a free hand to do as they like. I can see how this might seem logical, but it should relate to horse riding rather than the monarchy, as in to be given free rein. Not to be confused with wet rain falling from the clouds, or the US gender-neutral name Rayne, meaning abundant blessings from above.

 

And this is before we get to the words with one spelling but lots of different meanings...

Homonyms

 

To smirkle means to assume a facial expression somewhere between pleasure and sarcasm, followed by laughter; an emotional response to an idiotic question; a dance move in Revenge of the Nerds; a gag reflex to a noxious odour, and also to pilfer or steal.

 

Swanky can be used as a compliment for something that’s strikingly fashionable or luxurious, but it can also mean to be overly ostentatious, or using one’s wealth, knowledge or achievements to try to impress others. In Scots, swanky means an active or clever young fellow, one who is tall but lank, or to be empty or hungry. Whereas swank is a Scots word meaning slender, pliant, agile, or supple.

Pernicious means both destructive and highly injurious, but also (according to Milton) swift, ready and prompt.

 

A tent could be a portable canvas shelter, an embroidery or tapestry frame, a plug or roll of soft material for dilating a wound, or the Scots word for taking heed or notice of.

 

A rabble could be a disorderly mob, but also a device for stirring molten iron etc in a furnace.

 

To cleave is both to split apart and to join together.

 

A race is the descendants of a common ancestor, a fixed course or track over which anything runs, the white streak down an animal’s face, a rootstock of ginger (Shakespeare) to raze or erase, or to tear away or snatch. (Both Spenser. He just made them up as he felt like it, didn’t he?)

 

One of my pet hates is the word feisty, used to mean tough, independent, or spirited—usually about a heroine. It can also mean lively and aggressive. However, originally feisty mean either a small, excitable, yappy dog, or to be flatulent. Not the kind of characteristic I particularly want to be associated with Charlie Fox…

 

Anyway, there are LOTS of others, so what are your favourites, folks? And what’s the best accidental misuse of a word you’ve ever come across?

 

No Word of the Week this week. I think I’ve used quite enough, don’t you?