Road Apples
Jan. 4, 2010


Hear Sum Mower Fun Net Eeks Four Ewe

By Tim Sanders

Context is everything. If we mishear a phrase, we can probably figure out what we misinterpreted by putting it into the context of the rest of the sentence. When we have no frame of reference, mondegreens occur. The term mondegreen was coined by author Sylvia Wright, who said that as a child she heard these plaintive lines from the ballad “The Bonnie Earl O’Murray”:

“They hae slain the Earl O’Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen.”

Only later would she learn that nobody named Lady Mondegreen was ever assassinated along with that O’Murray guy, and that the actual last line was “And laid him on the green.”

Another of Ms. Wright’s misinterpretations concerned a line she thought she’d heard in the 23rd Psalm which threatened: “Surely good Mrs. Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Good or not, the idea of Mrs. Murphy trailing her around until death did them part apparently unnerved little Sylvia.

But haven’t we’ve all said to ourselves from time to time, “Gee, wouldn’t it be fun if somebody made a game out of mondegreens?” Oh, okay, so maybe we haven’t, but somebody did invent one. His name is Terry White, and in 1994 he created a game called Mad Gab, which I’d never heard about until our son David got my wife and me that very game for Christmas. Here’s how it works:

There are a lot of cards, and some people sit around and one of them shows the other ones a phrase on a card which says something like “Amos Ooze” or “Asp Pink Holler Otto.” The other players scratch their heads, mumble to themselves for awhile, get really steamed and then throw pizza at the guy aggravating them with those stupid cards.

Just kidding. What really happens is that there is a timer involved, somehow, and each team is supposed to solve these mystery phrases by saying them out loud, and getting louder and louder until either a) the neighbors complain, or b) they come up with the actual phrase. “Amos Ooze,” for example, becomes “a masseuse.” And “Asp Pink Holler Otto,” becomes “Aspen Colorado,” or as I intoned triumphantly, with visions of Elvis’s ‘57 Cadillac dancing in my head, “ASS PINK COLORED AUTO!” We didn’t read the rules or use the timer, we just showed each other cards, and since there were three of us playing, argued over whose turn it was to show a card to whom. Here are some of the other mondegreens we tortured each other with, each of which is definitely “Ape Lay Onwards”:

“Buy Chore Dung”
“Tanks Ford Deem Emma Reese”
“Jaw Jan Law Rob Whoosh”
“Putty Stale Beet Weenies Legs”
“Lay Turd Who’d”
“Airy Ledges Purse Sun”
“Who Juan Stubby Aim Hill Yon Hair”

There are hundreds of them, all neatly printed on little cards. You don’t need other players. For fun you can take your cards and your timer and sit on your front porch repeating each phrase over and over. Use the timer to see just how long it takes for a neighbor to throw a brick at you.

All of the mondegreen stuff is old hat to me. I’ve misheard sentences and phrases all my life. Now that my hearing has become irreparably damaged by the ravages of marriage, it is even worse. My wife has threatened to do me serious physical damage if I keep on asking “HUH?” or “Did you say so and so?” That is because not only is she tired of repeating herself, but she is also tired of hearing me come up with interpretations of what she’s just said that sound every bit as stupid as those goofy phonetic Mad Gab lines.

To those of us with defective ears, coats become goats, floors become doors, chairs turn into stairs, and catalytic heaters magically transform themselves into Catholic repeaters. And since we automatically make mondegreens without even trying, it occurred to me that I could make up my own Mad Gab phrases, and maybe sell them to this Terry White guy.

One of my favorite mondegreens, stuck right in the middle of an old limerick, popped into my head:

“The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher,
Said the hen was an elegant creature.
The hen, glad of that,
Laid an egg in his hat.
And thus did the hen reward Beecher.”


“AHA, BEECHER! That’s the ticket!” I struggled for quite some time, and finally came up with what I thought were some excellent disguised phrases, all dealing with prominent religious figures.

“Read these,” I said to Marilyn.

She read the first one, and then repeated it several times. “Muttered Erase A Sock East Tick.” She finally gave up.

When I explained that it concerned a religious relic, and finally told her that what it said was “Mother Teresa’s hockey stick,” she told me I was a moron.

“Why in the world would Mother Teresa have had a hockey stick?” she asked. “Nobody plays ice hockey in Calcutta.”

I told her the hockey stick was mainly in there for style, and asked her to try another one.

“Eye Baroque Ah Lay Cat Uh Bill Eager Am Crews Aid.” She repeated it several different ways, and finally said it was giving her a headache and that she wasn’t sure, but she thought she’d heard the phone ringing and maybe there was also something burning on the stove or someone at the door or something, and she had to go.

I had another one she’d probably have hated too, which was “Ann Tider Vain Ted Inn A Near Nest Ain’t She Lee He Link Meat Ink.”

Like I always say, “Hits Ad Went Rouge Genie Us His Egg ... er, Egg Nord.”