NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 6 — Misheard Prayers

DAY 6. Misheard Prayers

The term mondegreen was coined by writer Sylvia Wright in a 1954 Harper’s essay. As a child, she misheard the ballad line:

“They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / And laid him on the green”

as

“They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / And Lady Mondegreen.”

Hence: mondegreen.

Mondegreens thrive in oral tradition because transmission depends on ear not eye. They blur memory and imagination — the listener becomes a co-writer. Mishearing is often where oral tradition generates variation; texts survive through their errors. Why are we doing this? Mishearing creates poetry. Think of mondegreens (misheard song lyrics) or prayers recited by rote until the words blur. When you mis-hear, the language mutates: “deliver us from evil” becomes “deliver us some eels.” In the 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge, some mondegreens appear like "Round John Virgin" (instead of "'Round yon virgin...") and "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" (instead of "Gladly the cross I'd bear"). They permeated into pop songs too like Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze: “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy” (for “kiss the sky”); Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bad Moon Rising: “There’s a bathroom on the right” (for “bad moon on the rise”); or Elton John, Tiny Dancer: “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” which became a popular meme because of a humorous scene in the show Friends where Courteney Cox's character sings the misheard lyric. Alice Oswald’s Memorial and Caroline Bergvall’s Drift have leaned on mishearings, chants, and fragments as raw material. This prompt taps into the slippage between what’s said and what’s heard [What your ear makes up can be more charged than what the lyricist wrote.]. Or, something related... Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sprung rhythms often cause readers to “hear” multiple possible versions at once: half deliberate mondegreens? A mondegreen reminds us that sense is never purely semantic: it’s also sonic, embodied, fallible. The defamiliarization of it where suddenly, language isn’t fixed; it wriggles under us. But, at the same time, the communal memory of it where shared mishearing becomes folklore.

Gavin Edwards has a collection of essays on the subject in this blog, which includes a link to his Mondegreen Hall of Fame. Jon Carroll’s “I’m Not Blue, I’m Mondegreen” is a column in the San Francisco Chronicle from June 1996, where he collects funny mondegreens from readers. And, “The Bright Elusive Mondegreen of Love” is another SF Chronicle column of Carroll (April 1997) with canonical examples and anecdotes.

Another something even more related is an eggcorn. An eggcorn happens when someone mishears or misunderstands a word or phrase. They then replace it with a similar-sounding phrase that makes sense in the given context, even though it's incorrect. Examples: "egg-corn" for "acorn"; "old-timers' disease" for "Alzheimer's disease"; "for all intensive purposes" for "for all intents and purposes". The "Eggcorn Database" refers to a website founded by linguists on the Language Log blog where users can submit and view linguistic slips called eggcorns. An eggcorn is a misheard or reinterpreted word or phrase that creates a new, logically plausible, yet incorrect phrase (e.g., using "egg-corn" instead of "acorn"). These errors are not just simple misspellings but attempts to make sense of unfamiliar words based on one's existing vocabulary, often with humorous and creative results. 

How can we do this?

• Pick a text you know by heart (a prayer, hymn, pledge, chant, song lyric, family saying).
• Write it out as you mishear it. Don’t correct spelling; let phonetics drive the line.
• Break into 10–15 short lines, enjambed.
• Let at least one line be a direct address (“O ___,” “Dear ___,” “You who ___”).
• End with a fragment that’s just sound (nonsense syllables, humming, static).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Include one word in another language that slips in by accident.
• Strike through the “official” version of a line and leave the misheard one beside it.
• Use a refrain that keeps coming back wronger each time.
• Hide one real memory inside the nonsense, unannounced.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

Our farther who art in heaving,  

haloed by hallow be thy flame.  

Thy kingdom gum, thy wilting dawn,  

in hearth as in oven.  

Give us this stay our jelly bread,  

and frog-give us our presses—  

as we frog-give those who dress-pass—  

and lead us into lemon,  

deliver us some eels.  

Ah-men, ah-mend, amen.

DAY 6. Misheard Prayers

O widowed wind,
our farther in the heaving,

hollow be that flame,
thy kingdom gum,

thy well-be-done
in earth as in oven.

give us this day our jelly thread,
and frog-give us our tresst,

as we frog-give
those who pass us by the side road,
in rain. (I remember your coat here.)

lead us into lemon,
deliver us some eels,

dear lantern of wrong things,
still,
still—

ah-min,
ah-mere,
mmm-mmm-nn.

~ Oizys.