Homophonic translations have always interested me...a haiku about it and a wonderful party game called Chinese Whisper
In the essay, Sylvia Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonny Earl O'Moray." She wrote:
In the essay, Sylvia Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final line of the first stanza from the 17th-century ballad "The Bonny Earl O'Moray." She wrote:
- When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:
- Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
- Oh, where hae ye been?
- They hae slain the Earl O' Moray,
- And Lady Mondegreen.
The actual fourth line is "And laid him on the green". Wright explained the need for a new term: "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original." Source
Lady Mondegreen
at the end of every circle-
Chinese whispers
© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
1 COMMENTS:
You have got imagination Nalini.. don't let it go waste..
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