Mondegreen

Today’s word is mondegreen which is a noun that means a word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

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When she was 6, her favorite uncle was killed by a drunk in a head-on collision while he was driving his red Volkswagen Beetle home from work. At the time of his death, she was being taught in her parochial school about purgatory and she became very worried that her uncle was stranded all alone, waiting until enough prayers were said for him to let him pass into heaven. She became obsessed with this knowledge, and she prayed for him constantly, reciting over and over her two favorite prayers, The Hail Mary and The Our Father. Sometimes she would try and say The Act of Contrition but she didn’t really have all of the words to that prayer memorized and she was really wasn’t sure if saying only part of a prayer counted, so to be on the safe side she stuck with the two she thought she knew best. It was until years later that she would realize that she had created a mondegreen when she exchanged the word “room” for “womb” in all of her Hail Marys, by saying "and blessed is the fruit of thy room, Jesus." 

At the time she had always wondered why Jesus wanted the fruit blessed in his room; she always imagined he had a bedroom full of apples, oranges and grapes filled to the ceiling, but praying and purgatory were all very mysterious to her anyway, so she never asked anyone to explain.

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