Wednesday 18 May 2011

Mondegreen

Sticking to the world of music, today's word is mondegreen. You may have never heard or read this word before but it refers to something that you are certainly familiar with.

A mondegreen is simply a word or group of words that a person mishears in a song. (You can listen to the pronunciation of the word here).  

A famous example of a mondegreen is the title of the well-known series of travel guides, Lonely Planet. The founders of this series, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, gave their guidebooks this name after they heard the words lonely planet in a song. It was only later that they realised that the real lyrics were lovely planet.

Take a look at this hilarious Youtube video of Nelly Furtado's I'm like a bird:


And this video of Livin' la vida loca by Ricky Martin.

Sunday 1 May 2011

Earworm

Most people have had the unpleasant experience of a song playing endlessly in their heads and not knowing how to stop it. Well, now you know what to call it: earworm, which is a literal translation of the German word ohrwurm.

Wikipedia defines earworm as a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as  "music being stuck in onĂ©s head ." 

There is even a website dedicated to earworms.