Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is an amusing collection of misheard song lyrics, malapropisms, and other humorous language gaffes. My title is one example (from repeat linguistic offender Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago) of the most satisfying category in the book: errors by politicians in public venues. There are many other celebrity comments (some of which are included despite being likely intended as puns by the speaker). I am fond of John Lennon's famous confusion of "onomatopoeia" and "automatic pier", for instance.
Misheard song lyrics make up a large part of this book, and am especially amused by the mishearing of Petula Clark's "Downtown": "Listen to the rhythm of the gentle boxing gopher". The book is not without errors of its own, however. For instance, on page 46, the author thinks that the phrase "dedicated car park for daily parking only" on the University of Dundee website is hilarious for some reason, commenting that "...this excellent recent example of the art of the malaprop conjures the image of a bishop consecrating the hallowed parking bays.... Strictly speaking the university in question should provide a 'designated' car park". That would be great, except he's wrong. One definition of "dedicated" is "set apart or reserved for a specific use or purpose", as in "dedicated car park". If you are going to write a book about unintended misuse of language, it's critical that you know what the words actually do mean.
On balance the book has many entertaining language use mistakes, but many are not especially humorous. This is a modestly amusing book, but there are better books in the genre available.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Ants Are My Friends: Misheard Lyrics, Malapropisms, Eggcorns, and Other Linguistic Gaffes
Do you take things for granite? Do you need a secretary at your beckoned call? InThe Ants Are My Friends—delightfully misheard from Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind"—Martin Toseland has collected the very best, and very worst, linguistic gifts of the gaffe. Examples have been plucked gleefully from three categories of blunders: malapropisms—named after Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan's playThe Rivals where the wrong word pops out to bizarre results; eggcorns—where a new word is created from misheard real one (the name comes from someone misunderstanding "acorn" as "eggcorn," as it has the same shape); andof coursemondegreens, or misheard lyrics, a rich vein of accidental invention. Such classic mondegreens are collected as Ray Parker Jr.'s "Who Ya Gonna Call, Gus Foster," Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams are Made of Cheese," Roy Orbison's "Only Baloney," AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done with Sheep," and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tangerine Man."
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