Word Games
Mondegreens, Kenyan style. I’m going to try to start a collection of these. A Mondegreen is San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll’s term for that phenomenon when you’re listening to song lyrics and think they’re saying something different from what they actually are.
He says, "For those of you who have not yet received the pamphlet (mailed free to anyone who buys me an automobile), the word Mondegreen, meaning a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric, was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright.
As a child she 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."
These aren’t exactly Mondegreens because they weren’t sung to me, only recited in a normal Kenyan accent, but confusion ensued anyway.
1. One day Hillary called me sounding really distressed. “I lost my hand,” he said.
“You lost your WHAT?” I said, shock setting in as I imagined having to get used to a one-handed Hillary. “Your hand?”
“Yes, my hand,” he said.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “How? What happened?” Some thugs attacked him in the middle of the night and chopped it off with a machete. He got it caught in the grinder at the maize mill. A rabid dog went nuts and bit it off.
“She went into labor, but by the time they arrived at the hospital she had died,” he said.
Long pause.
“OHH,” I said. “Your AUNT. You lost your aunt.”
“Yes, I lost my hand,” he said.
[Nandis often add an “h” where there is none or remove an “h” when there is one. They also pronounce “p” as “b” and vice versa, “s” as “z” and vice versa, and “j” as “ch” and vice versa.]
2. One of our teachers told us during training, “The Luo tribe, we like feces.”
“You like feces?”
“Yes, Luos love to eat feces. We make our living as feecermen around Lake Victoria.”
“Fishermen? You catch fish in Lake Victoria?”
“Yes, there’s lots of feces in the lake.”
Mondegreens, American Style. Peace Corps volunteers all agree, Kenyans can’t make heads or tails of our accents, either.
1. Me: “Hi, I’d like to buy a Celtel card.” (A card that allows you to put prepaid credit on your cell phone.)
Vendor: “You want what? Carrots?”
2. Americans can’t roll their “r”s. Kenyans can’t hear “r”s that aren’t rolled.
Me: “Where’s the train station?”
Taxi driver: “Where is…? China?”
He says, "For those of you who have not yet received the pamphlet (mailed free to anyone who buys me an automobile), the word Mondegreen, meaning a mishearing of a popular phrase or song lyric, was coined by the writer Sylvia Wright.
As a child she 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."
These aren’t exactly Mondegreens because they weren’t sung to me, only recited in a normal Kenyan accent, but confusion ensued anyway.
1. One day Hillary called me sounding really distressed. “I lost my hand,” he said.
“You lost your WHAT?” I said, shock setting in as I imagined having to get used to a one-handed Hillary. “Your hand?”
“Yes, my hand,” he said.
“Oh, my God,” I said. “How? What happened?” Some thugs attacked him in the middle of the night and chopped it off with a machete. He got it caught in the grinder at the maize mill. A rabid dog went nuts and bit it off.
“She went into labor, but by the time they arrived at the hospital she had died,” he said.
Long pause.
“OHH,” I said. “Your AUNT. You lost your aunt.”
“Yes, I lost my hand,” he said.
[Nandis often add an “h” where there is none or remove an “h” when there is one. They also pronounce “p” as “b” and vice versa, “s” as “z” and vice versa, and “j” as “ch” and vice versa.]
2. One of our teachers told us during training, “The Luo tribe, we like feces.”
“You like feces?”
“Yes, Luos love to eat feces. We make our living as feecermen around Lake Victoria.”
“Fishermen? You catch fish in Lake Victoria?”
“Yes, there’s lots of feces in the lake.”
Mondegreens, American Style. Peace Corps volunteers all agree, Kenyans can’t make heads or tails of our accents, either.
1. Me: “Hi, I’d like to buy a Celtel card.” (A card that allows you to put prepaid credit on your cell phone.)
Vendor: “You want what? Carrots?”
2. Americans can’t roll their “r”s. Kenyans can’t hear “r”s that aren’t rolled.
Me: “Where’s the train station?”
Taxi driver: “Where is…? China?”
posted by Justina at 10:58 PM
4 Comments:
i haven't been able to find your email address on your blog. but i wanted to tell you that everytime i check and find that you wrote a new post i actually yell "yaaaay"...in my office. :)
Sweeeet!! I gots some fans! Kisses! Kisses!
Colin. Dude. Hao jiu bu jian. Great to hear from you!
Justina,
Here's a Mondegreen for you: :)
This is from Prince's album, Purple Rain. The song
is When Doves Cry.
How can u just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold? (So cold)
Maybe I'm just 2 demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father 2 bold
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other
This is what it sounds like
When doves cry
On this line:
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (She's never satisfied)
I wonder for a long time, how come his mother
never "sat inside". :)
Take care.
Jose
Justina, I just LOVE your blog... just wanted to let you know, that you have some secret admires out there.
Ok, here comes my experience at the Kisumu second hand market where I went to buy a pair of shorts for my little brother:
"Yes madam, what are you looking for?"
"Shorts is what I am looking for."
"Ok. That is good because here in my sop i shell sorts, shocks and sirts. So make your choice of all the shorts of things I have."
Hmmmm.... What a choice!
:-)))))))))
Greetings from Nairobi,
Maria
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