A mondegreen is a word or words formed from a misinterpretation of what the word or words actually are, such as “take it for granite,” for “take it for granted” and “for all intensive purposes” for “for all intents and purposes.”
Children are innocently brilliant at concocting original interpretations of the boundaries that separate words. Try singing along with these takes on holiday favorites, revised by America’s misspelt youth:
• Good King Wences’ car backed out
On a piece of Stephen
• Deck the halls with Buddy Holly.
• We three kings of porridge and tar
• On the first day of Christmas my tulip gave to me
• Later on we’ll perspire, as we dream by the fire
• He’s making a list, of chicken and rice
• Noel. Noel, Barney’s the king of Israel
• Bells on bobtail ring,
Making spareribs bright
• Get a yuck, get a yuck, get a yuck yuck yuck
• Olive, the other reindeer
• You’ll go down in Listerine
• In the meadow we can build a snowman
Then pretend that he is sparse and brown
• Sleep in heavenly peas, sleep in heavenly peas
• Chipmunks roasting on an open fire
• Oh, what fun it is to ride with one horse, soap and hay
• What a friend we have in cheeses
• You’ll tell Carol, “Be a skunk, I require”
• Where shepherds washed their socks by night
• Get dressed, ye married gentlemen, get huffing you this May
• Round John Virgin, mother and child,
Holy Vincent, so tender and mild
Now, here are 25 pompously inflated titles of Christmas carols and songs that you hear and perhaps sing during the month of December. Your task is to translate each ponderous, obfuscated version back into its original form.
Example: Cup-Shaped Instruments Fashioned of a Whitish Metallic Element = “Silver Bells.” All answers repose at the end of this column.
1. O Miniature Nazarene Village 2. Antlered Quadruped with the Cerise Proboscis
3. From Dark Till Dawn, Soundless and Sanctimonious 4. Locomote Hitherward, All You Steadfast 5. In a Distant Bovine Animal Feeding Station Improvised for a Child’s Slumber 6. Pastoral Woollies Nocturnally Observed by Vigilant Herdsmen 7. My Sole Desire for the Yuletide Season is Receipt of Twin Anterior Incisors 8. Celestial Messengers From Splendid Empires 9. The Event Occurred at the Darkest Time With Visibility Unlimited 10. Ornament the Corridors with Sprigs of Berry-Bearing Evergreen 11. Exuberation to This Orb 12. Jehovah Bestow Respite Upon You Rollicking Chevaliers 13. The Fledgling Male Who Plays a Percussion Instrument 14. The Primordial Yuletide 15. Who is the Mysterious Pre-adolescent? 16. I Perceived the Tintinnabulation on December 25 17. Perambulating Through a December Solstice Fantasy Topography 18. Soporific Hallucination of an Alabaster Nativity Celebration 19. Tintinnabulation of Vacillating Pendules in Inverted Metallic Caps 20. I Witnessed My Maternal Parent’s Indiscretion with Kris Kringle
21. Are You Detecting the Same Aural Sensations As I Am? 22. Listen! Celestial Cherubic Massagers Generate Harmonious Sounds 23. A Trio of Reigning Monarchs of the Far East 24. A Chronologically Endowed Hirsute Gentleman Draws Nigh 25. The Diminutive Striped Squirrel Melody
Answers
1. O Little Town of Bethlehem 2. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer 3. Silent Night, Holy Night 4. Come All Ye Faithful 5. Away in a Manger 6. When Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night 7. All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth 8. Angels From the Realms of Glory 9. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear 10. Deck the Halls With Boughs of Holly 11. Joy to the World 12. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen 13. The Little Drummer Boy 14. The First Noel 15. What Child Is This? 16. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day 17. Walking Through a Winter Wonderland 18. I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas 19. Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells 20. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus 21. Do You Hear What I Hear? 22. Hark the Herald Angels Sing 23. We Three Kings of Orient Are 24. Here Comes Santa Claus 25. The Chipmunk Song