Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 17:48:55 -0700

From: THOMAS CLARK tlc[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NEVADA.EDU

Subject: Re: Mondegreens



Uh, Larry, There is a BOOK of such "aural/oral-spelling" gaffes named

_Pullet Surprise_

Cheers,

tlc



On Sat, 16 Sep 1995, Larry Horn wrote:



Rima McKinzey writes:

"pullet surprise" is what many of us call Mondegreens, those mishearings

we've all had at one time or another. This one is a mishearing of

Pullitzer Prize.



Right, as in the possibly apocryphal student examinee who wrote that so-and-so

won a pullet surprise. I've adopted this term for this particular variety of

folk-etymological reanalysis (e.g. four-stair furnace, spitting image) since

coming across it in Fromkin & Rodman, who cite an eponymous compilation. I

don't know if there's a term for the orthographic variety (e.g. shoe-in).



Larry