Mondegreen
- “what is a mondegreen”
- “misheard lyrics word”
- “who coined mondegreen”
- “lady mondegreen”
:: COMPARE ::
MondegreenvsEggcorn
The short answer
An eggcorn is a mishearing that reinterprets logically — it stays plausible. A mondegreen is a mishearing that reinvents. One is a reasonable wrong guess; the other is a small accidental fiction.
Side by side
| Aspect | Mondegreen | Eggcorn |
|---|---|---|
| Result makes sense | Not necessarily | Yes |
| Usually from | Songs and verse | Speech |
| Named | 1954 | 2003 |
| Charm | The absurdity | The logic |
Which one you meant
Readers who land here meaning Mondegreen rather than Eggcorn are usually searching for phrases like “what is a mondegreen”, “misheard lyrics word”, “who coined mondegreen”.
Eggcorn
- “what is an eggcorn”
- “eggcorn vs malapropism”
- “for all intensive purposes”
- “deep seeded meaning”
Which came first
Mondegreen. 1954 — Sylvia Wright coins the word in Harper's Magazine, describing how as a child she misheard a line of the ballad 'The Bonny Earl of Murray'.
- 1954MondegreenSylvia Wright coins the word in Harper's Magazine, describing how as a child she misheard a line of the ballad 'The Bonny Earl of Murray'.
- 23 September 2003EggcornMark Liberman posts on Language Log about a woman writing 'egg corns' for 'acorns', asking what to call the phenomenon.
Where the confusion comes from
“It's the same as an eggcorn.”
An eggcorn is a reinterpretation that still MAKES SENSE — 'egg corn' for 'acorn' is a plausible reanalysis. A mondegreen produces something that does not have to make sense at all, and often gains its charm from not making sense.
Read either one in full