One of Dad’s poems dates the book in a general manner. “Minnehaha Falls, 1937” is a funeral dirge for the passing of Minnehaha Creek’s small but beautiful waterfall, abandoned and neglected by the city at the time Dad wrote the poem. Below is the first stanza:

Here stood a water-fall flecked with spray;
Blessed by a poet of yesterday;
Sung to the hills by an age gone by;
Left by the spoilers to drip and die.

Fortunately, Dad lived long enough to see Minnehaha Falls rush and gurgle again. (Minnehaha supposedly means “Laughing Waters.”) Minneapolis, city of lakes and parks, returned the area to a glorious, 167.24 acre park with water dancing over the rock ledge once more.

More than poetry, if possible, my dad loved a good joke and/or word play. The jokes he collected on his route as a mailman were of two categories: those told only to men standing in a tight circle at the end of a shadowy hallway; those that wouldn’t offend women or children. In otherwird, the rather boring ones. Children normally received a substantial dose of Mondegreens. My father was crazy about misinterpreted words, such as lyrics in often sung church hymns. The title of this article was his all-time favorite. From the hymn “Keep Thou My Way,” by Fanny Crosby, the line actually reads, “Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I’ll bear.” This, naturally, gave birth to Gladly, the cross-eyed bear. Dad adored that eye-disabled bear. Gladly could crack him up in a blink. In fact, all one had to say was, “Gladly,” and Dad was off on a laugh track.

Mondegreens are pretty priceless, when you think about it. The word itself is new to the language. In the November 1954 issue of Harper’s Magazine, the American author, Sylvia Wright wrote an essay confessing to being a Mondegreener. As a child, Sylvia had the joy of listening to her mother read from Percey’s “Reliques.” The first stanza of a 17th century ballad, “The Bonney Earl O’Murray,” always struck the little girl as wondrously romantic and terribly sad.

Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl O’Murray
And Lady Mondegreen.

The fourth line actually reads, “And laid him on the green.” Pretty understandable for a child to mishear something so strange to her ear. What Sylvia finally did with her confessional essay was at last give to all the misheard song lyrics a really neat name. The word made it into the universe of dictionaries in 2000.

Mondegreens are not to be confused with Spoonerisms. The British Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) gave the rest of the English-speaking human race the terrific gift of chronic slips of the tongue, or tips of the slung. Examples: tease my ears – ease my tears; go and shake a tower – go and take a shower; pleating and humming – heating and plumbing. And there must be a billion more.

They are all amusing, of course, but they don’t reduce me to tearful, convulsive laughter, followed by hiccups, like Mondegreens do. My funny bone must be tuned to the ill-heard songs of my times.

I must confess to a Mondegreen of my very own. I am a big fan of Paul Simon’s words and music. His “Kodachrome” from the 1973 album, “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon,” was one of my all-time Simon favorites. I adored the first stanza, which could have functioned as an anthem for my generation.

“When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall.”

Listening to the song the first few times, I missed all the photographic indicators saturating the second stanza. This probably happened because I was blown away by the initial stanza. Consequently, when Paul got to the line, “So, Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away,” I heard, “Mama, don’t take my chromosomes away.” It made perfect sense to me. If anybody can remove one’s chromosomes, it had to be one’s mother. Why she would do such a thing and how she would arrange it, who knew? It was just a song, for heaven’s sake!

There are other souls out there who also had trouble with Simon’s lyrics in this particular song. One person heard what Paul was asking his mother not to do as, “Mama, don’t take my cordless phone away.” Now that one makes sense. It came from a wonderful book by Gavin Edwards, entitled, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Pants,” which has the power to reduce me to fits of laughter. Here are a few more Mondegreens found in Mr. Edwards’ book:

From Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach; Actual lyric: “Papa, I know you’re going to be upset.” Misheard Lyric: Popeye, I know you’re going to be upset.

From Over The Rainbow, sung by a young Judy Garland;
Actual lyric: “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high.”
Misheard Lyric: Somewhere over the rain bow, weigh a pie.

From Billy Joel’s “You may be right.”
Actual lyric: “You may be right, I may be crazy.”
Misheard lyric: You make the rice, I’ll make the gravy.

I feel the need to admit one last Mondegreen on my conscience. I am old enough now to have hearing problems, which fills my daily existence with hilarity at times. Most of the day, the husband person and I listen to Beautiful Music on Sirius radio. (Using a Boze system that can blow you out of the room.) But while I type up these teeny-tiny masterpieces of authorship, I listen to a local radio station that calls itself “The Classic Rock Station.” What do I hear? Well, I hate to admit this, but even though I know without a doubt that it’s Classic, I invariably hear “Plastic Rock.” “The Plastic Rock Station.” Am I that far off the Richter scale for sanity? Don’t answer that.

If you are interested in Mondegreens there are several online sites that deal with them. The best one I found is Jon Carroll’s. A columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Jon receives apparently tons of Mondegreens from readers with the M inclination. Look for Weapons of Mass Mondegreens and More Weapons of Mass Mondegreens. The columns are delightful. The Mondegreens are priceless.

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About the author Cate Lane: Born in Minnesota and raised a temperate progressive, I was carried off to Texas 10 years ago by the tsunami that was my husband's retirement. Texas is not Minnesota, not by a long shot. However, I hear that Minnesota isn't Minnesota anymore either.

Writing was always my first choice in life. I began writing at the age of 8, small books about pioneers heading west. Little did I know then that I would be living in the most "western" of all the states, Texas. No one told the Texans that they are simply Southerners who, like Bugs Bunny, took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and wound up here.

I am sneaking up on 70 years of age and now own a vast store of useless knowledge. Happy to share any or all of it with you all.

Email: CthlnLn@aol.com

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