All I really wanted to do was find the most recent email address of a friend. It was a mere matter of checking for the most recent email message from him, but he has one of those random .signature generators, and it had this interesting little poem. An hour (at least) later, here we are.
My Spill Chequer
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
(Sauce unknown)
So I started searching to see who wrote it. I didn't find that, but I did come across a lovely word; "oronym". It isn't in my online dictionary (it's a relatively recent neologism (another lovely word), but the Wikipedia (of course) has it. It says:
This term was coined by Gyles Brandreth and first published in his book The Joy of Lex (1980), and it was used in the BBC programme Never Mind the Full Stops, which also featured Brandreth as a guest.
Oronyms are basically homophones which span words. They work in spoken English (and often depend on dialects) because we run all our words together. The above poem uses them of course, but there's a more famous example. (This version taken from Fun With Words.) I've heard this one before, although I'd forgotten it. Once upon a time :-) I had a friend who could recite the entire piece.
An Oronym Story – Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
Even more impressive in length is the following oronym story. It is the tale of Little Red Riding Hood... but not the famous version; this one is constructed entirely from homophones: Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. This curious version was written in 1940 by a professor of French named H. L. Chace. He wanted to show his students that intonation is an integral part of the meaning of language. Try reading it out loud (best in the accent of Southern/Central USA)!
Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge, dock, florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
Wan moaning, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut's murder colder inset. "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groinmurder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! Dun stopper peck floors! Dun daily-doily inner florist, an yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!"
"Hoe-cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. "Wail, wail, wail!" set disk wicket woof, "Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?"
"Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle gull. "Grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles."
"O hoe! Heifer gnats woke," setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, "Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den - O bore!"
Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinney retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner windrow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. En inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet, paunched honor pore oil worming, an garbled erupt. Den disk ratchet ammonol pot honor groin-murder's nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled ope inner bet.
Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough ball. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity betrum an stud buyer groin-murder's bet.
"O Grammar!" crater ladle gull historically, "Water bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"
"Battered lucky chew whiff, sweat hard," setter bloat-Thursday woof, wetter wicket small honors phase.
"O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomolous prognosis!"
"Battered small your whiff, doling," whiskered dole woof, ants mouse worse waddling.
"O Grammar, water bag mouser gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!"
Daze worry on-forger-nut ladle gull's lest warts. Oil offer sodden, caking offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk hoard hoarded woof lipped own pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.
Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers.
The same Fun With Words page also then references "mondegreens" (another new word!), which are misheard lyrics.
The term mondegreen was originally coined by author Sylvia Wright, and has come to be quite widely used. As a child, Wright heard the lyrics of The Bonny Earl of Murray(a Scottish ballad) as:
Ye highlands and ye lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
Thou hae slay the Earl of Murray
And Lady MondegreenIt eventually transpired that Lady Mondegreen existed only in the mind of Sylvia Wright, for the actual lyrics said that they "slay the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green." And to this day Lady Mondegreen's name has been used to describe all mishearings of this type!
You see these a lot on the web, when people are writing down the lyrics to their favorite songs. I remember stumbling across this one. The song is Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words". The verse goes:
Read some Byron, Shelley and Keats,
recited it over a hip-hop beat
I'm havin trouble sayin what i mean,
with dead poets and a drum machine
But the first version I found online (on some poor girl's journal) was:
Written by Ricelli and Keys
Resided in over a heartbeat
I'm having trouble saying what I mean
With dead poets and drum machines
And now I think I better get back to sending my friend that email message!
