talking about mondegreens a while back? I discovered this explanation on the web . . . The term "mondegreen" was invented by the writer Sylvia Wright in 1954, and for an explanation of the circumstances, we turn to Mr. Mondegreen himself, columnist Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle, who has made it his personal crusade to popularize the care and feeding of mondegreens: "As a child [Sylvia Wright] had heard the Scottish ballad ''The Bonny Earl of Murray" and had believed that one stanza went like this: Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands, Oh where hae you been?, They hae slay the Earl of Murray, And Lady Mondegreen. "Poor Lady Mondegreen, thought Sylvia Wright. A tragic heroine dying with her liege; how poetic. When it turned out, some years later, that what they had actually done was slay the Earl of Murray and lay him on the green, Wright was so distraught by the sudden disappearance of her heroine that she memorialized her with a neologism." If you all, like me are curious about the origins of words and phrases, you should definitely check out this site. http://www.word-detective.com/backidx.html I guess this isn't exactly B & S content, but then, they seem to be talented wordsmiths to say the least. Julie +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". For list archives and searching, list rules, FAQ, poor jokes etc, see http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +---+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" +---+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+