Have you ever heard of an eggcorn? Or Lady Mondegreen? Probably not, because neither of them are real. You have, however, most likely heard of Sergeant Pepper, even though he’s not real either. Paul McCartney was at dinner and misheard someone say “pass the salt and pepper.” Later, he got to thinking: This Sgt. Pepper sounds like he could be an interesting character.
Eggcorns are neologisms that result from something being misheard; mondegreens are similar, but refer specifically to song lyrics.
One of the most famous examples of the eggcorn is intensive purposes instead of intents and purposes. While we all probably use eggcorns thinking we’re using proper words, I feel that with song lyrics, part of the fun can be mishearing — and coining malapropisms. To stick with the Beatles, “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” becomes “the girl with colitis goes by.”
Another variety is the spoonerism, in which consonants and vowels are swapped, usually for comic effect: “You hissed my mystery lecture” instead of “you missed my history lecture,” an original spoonerism coined by William Spooner himself, for whom the linguistic slip of the tongue is named.
There is a creativity in these mistakes, highlighted by the McCartney example, which he talks about with music producer Rick Rubin (incidentally Jewish) in a new documentary series on Hulu, “McCartney 3, 2, 1.” The one-on-one conversation, spread across six episodes, is a must-watch for Beatles fans, but really anyone interested in how music is made.
This is less a documentary about the musicians and more about the process, the intricate interplay between inspiration, composition and production.
Like how one misheard phrase led to one of rock music’s most memorable hits. It’s amazing how just about anything can spark an idea in a creative artist — or maybe it’s that very ability that makes them creative artists.
For us less creative types, even if we would never conjure Sergeant Pepper from table seasoning, we can still be swept along hearing about the creative process.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at [email protected]
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