"They changed where I'm supposed to board? But I had gate expectations." (It's kind of a soar subject.)
@Mike Your trip sounds like a SCIFIMOVIE. Did they get your ETs and your ETAs all mixed up?
@Mike Flight Miss? Havasham pain or two and you'll feel grounded.
@Mike At least they flew to the right place. Otherwise you'd be telling a tale of two cities. A real run around; an all over twist.
The origin of the term "mondegreens", from Wikipedia: In a 1954 essay in Harper’s Magazine, Sylvia Wright described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray” (from Thomas Percy’s 1765 book “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry”). She wrote: When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy’s "Reliques", and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember: Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands, Oh, where hae ye been? They hae slain the Earl Amurray, And Lady Mondegreen. The correct lines are, "They hae slain the Earl o' Moray / And laid him on the green." Wright explained the need for a new term: "The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original."
@Lewis This was how I learned the term 45 years ago from a wonderful managing editor I worked with at Cornell. Lady Mondegreen.
I thought 20 across was the rainbow joke. When behaving bad, they go to pRISm—a light sentence, a chance to reflect
@Shayne Taback Those rainbows are known for a spectrum of crooked activity.
My husband’s longstanding mondegreen: the Rolling Stones’ “I never smelled your pizza burning”. It was many years before he learned the actual words to Beast of Burden.
@Chungclan I talked to flies The cheese is curdlin'
This went fast ... until there were about five squares left to fill, and then slowed to a crawl. Fun.
I will add that I think 40D "Faire ___ (get by with, in French)" for AVEC is a poorly crafted clue. Of course, the word "avec" just means "with" in French — and the word "with" appears in the clue! This is just silly, because it is such an elaborate, unnecessary way to clue a simple word. Plus, while some foreign language familiarity is normally expected of solvers, I find that to grok an idiom like this is asking too much. (I lived near Paris for a year and never encountered this idiom.)
Jimi Hendrix: "Scuse me while I kiss this guy."
While the puzzle was way to easy, it did have my favorite answer of all time with, OLIVE, the other reindeer. Just brilliant.
(Emu-proofed version) My mondegreen: Manfred Mann's cover of the Bruce Springsteen song "Blinded by the Light." <a href="https://youtu.be/E5tJxTZOcHA?is=9sbLdjV60xI9hXQM" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/E5tJxTZOcHA?is=9sbLdjV60xI9hXQM</a> Original Lyrics: And little early-pearly came by in his curly-wurly And asked me if I needed a ride. Misheard Lyrics: A little early-birdy gave my @nu5 a curly whirly And asked me if I needed a run. Original lyrics: Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night Misheard lyrics: Wrapped up like a d0uch& bag running in the night. BTW, I had to look up the original lyrics because I can never remember them. Only the mondegreens live in my head. Thank you for the puzzle Mr. Cohn, and for the accompanying guffaws with the mondegreens in this forum!
@sotto voce You and a couple million others with this song. Impenetrable lyrics. Both versions.
@sotto voce lol I kept hearing “wrapped up like a doofus…”
@sotto voce Part of it is that the original lyrics make no sense to most people.
@sotto voce I remember listening to this song with my sister in the car, and when the "wrapped up like a d0uch&" lyric came up we both looked at each other like, "Did we just hear the same thing?"
“In the meadow we can build a snowman. And pretend that he is sparse and brown.” I had no clue about that line… and the next ones either until I listened to the first recording of Winter Wonderland, <a href="https://youtu.be/L2msLwz5V-U?is=RdHAhrrKUVGNHPy5" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/L2msLwz5V-U?is=RdHAhrrKUVGNHPy5</a>
@sonnel That would be a pretty sad snowman.
@sonnel Mine was close. I always thought it was "And pretend that he is parse and brown."
@sonnel Haha I always sang it as possum brown
Sean asked us to drop our favorite mondegreen into the comments. My favorite is "The girl with colitis goes by." Will colitis get past the emus? Hope so.
Fun puzzle, interesting entries. Very funny column, Sean. Sherpa, indeed. I laughed. Today I got a request in the games app to fill out a 10 minute survey. I thought it would be about the games, so I did. Generally I never complete surveys, but the games app could be an exception. Nope. It was really a survey trying to figure out how to sell me an all-access subscription. I resent surveys like that! "Here, answer a bunch of questions so we can figure out how to get more money out of you." Plus it was loooong. Ok NYT, that's my last survey. Hope it was worth it. Next time do your own g-d work.
@Nora Thanks for reading! Glad you liked the puzzle.
@Nora I join you in your irritation. And it would have been nice if Sean had actually answered your complaint or, if he's muzzled, at least acknowledged it and suggested where you might redirect it. This cheery non-answer of his is just more aggravating.
Great puzzle, Jesse! Sorry you’re hanging up your constructor hat, but hopefully you’ll find time to gift us with another when the kids are teenagers and want very little to do with grown ups. Enjoy them now! Favorite mondegreen comes from my granddaughter who thought Diana Ross was singing, “Stop in the neighborhood” instead of “Stop in the name of love.” She sang it loudly and proudly. Happy Friday!
I present to you the nondegreen (it should be something else, but you heard it right): The pompatus of love.
@David G Warm smell of colitas...
@David G Yes! I always wondered what the pompatus of love was! Tbh, I'm still wondering lol.
Thanks to everyone sharing their mondegreens, I'm really enjoying 'em. I think some of these misheard lyrics are an improvement!
The inference high – that moment when the brain suddenly sees the whole answer when just a few letters are filled in – that beatific flash – is one of the great pleasures of solving, and it peppered my solve today more than usual. I left the box buzzed and grateful. But even better than that, Jesse’s puzzle warmed my soul exactly as his last puzzle did, where the answer HASSOCK brought back memories of my Great Grandma Annie, who I revered, and who used that word, one of the few people I’ve known who has. And now today we see BORSCHT, a staple in the heavenly meals she made. You stirred my brain and soul, Jesse, on top of a fun outing, and I am very grateful. You say that you're retiring from making puzzles, but left open the possibility of coming back, and I greatly hope to see an encore up the road!
P.S. – Lovely to see WRIST following yesterday’s SLAPS.
Jack McCullough beat me to my favorite mondegreen. I’m crushed. Hold me closer, Tony Danza…
When I was a little kid, I thought the Beatles were singing ‘take the back right turn’ instead of paperback writer 🤭
Trippy first-time experience for me with today's grid. Got hung up in the midwest, went away to do dishes and suddenly SCIFIMOVIES appeared in my head where SCARYMOVIES had stymied me in the grid. This has never happened to me before when not looking at the puzzle or not thinking about it.
@Matt That's surprising. It has happened to me a lot, and I don't think I'm the only one.
@Matt I had SPACEMOVIES, then SCARYMOVIES. Finally removed “bolt” and found my way to SCIFIMOVIES, but didn’t see Sci-Fi and was wondering what “scifi” could possibly be! What’s the visual equivalent of a mondegreen?
@Matt Sounds like you actually *were* thinking about it…but “you” just weren’t aware of it :)
@Matt That happens to me with Spelling Bee!
Not quite a mondegreen since there's no tune, but my 3-year-old once recited "Mary had a little lamb, his feces white as snow."
@marigold There IS a tune to that! I'd sing it for you if I could, but I am sure you can find it online.
I saw John Fogerty in concert a few years ago. In "Bad Moon Rising," whatever he sang -- he pointed to his right. Other favorites: Elton John: "Someone shaved my wife tonight." The Clash: "Rock the cash bar." The Rascals: "Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie." The Beatles, from "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds": "The girl with colitis goes by." Steppenwolf, from "Born to Be Wild": "I like smokin' lightning." The Cars: "She's my best French girl." Aretha Franklin, "Natural Woman": "When my shawl was in the lost and found." Four Tops: "Ain't no woman like the one-eyed Goth." Van Morrison; "She's as sweet as tubular honey." Dobie Gray: "Give me the Beach Boys and free my soul." Those were the days, my friend ...
@Dan Woog I've heard the first one as a parody, with "laid" as the verb.
@Dan Woog Great list! For years as a kid I sang “you and me and Leslie”, never once bothering to wonder who this Leslie character was. I had great appreciation for the cleverness of David Letterman when Paul Shaffer and the band played “Groovin” to introduce Leslie Nielsen.
@Dan Woog We used to sing: I like smokin' ice cream
@Dan Woog et al I see I have benefitted from my inability to "hear" lyrics because my brain goes straight to the music... Always.
@Dan Woog Annie Lennox: Some of them want to amuse you Some of the want to be amused
@Dan Woog Per the Van Morrison song: I thought that possibly there was a quality scale for honey, and the best was rated "triple-O." Then I moved to the South and figured it out.
My all-time face, from John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” Real lyric: “So I work real hard, fiddle when I can . . .” Misheard: “So I work real hard, piddle in a can . . .”
The other day here in the Wordplay comments there was a discussion about the use of the phrase "Less than 10 items" rather than "Fewer than 10 items." Today, I read the following in a NYT article about the marathon: "He estimates the new program will lead to a 15 to 20 percent reduction in the amount of 9+1 participants." Shouldn't it say: "the number of 9+1 participants"? One of my pet peeves!
When I was a child and we said The Pledge of Allegiance, I always heard "...and to the republic for Richard Stands..." and I could never figure out who that guy Richard Stands was
@lucky13 Along those lines, I was always perplexed by “the donzerly light” in the Star Spangled Banner. It sounded majestic, whatever it was!
I'm in awe of the solvers who found this easy. It gave me quite a workout. I eventually caved and had to look up LUCA and BIGAL. I stuck too long with SPACEOPERAS which messed up the SW quadrant for me.
@VN I definitely found this puzzle to be easy…but yeah, being committed to “space operas” for 22D would have bumped the difficulty level considerably ;)
Maybe this isn't the right place for possibly a technical question. Is anyone else experiencing in the NYT Games android app that every time a puzzle is opened, a pop-up from Will Shortz slides up with tips and tricks for solving? This popup must be dismissed by either swiping down or tapping the "Let's Get Started" button. This is new behavior, started a couple days ago and it happens every single time. Not just when opening a puzzle for the first time, it even happens when returning to the grid from a menu. I don't see an option for turning this off in the app settings. Any insight?
@Kenny To clarify, it only happens in the crosswords, not the other games afaik.
@Kenny An app update fixed mine immediately. Someone else said yesterday to uninstall and reinstall. I'm on Android.
"Doughnuts make my brown eyes blue." Crystal Gayle
I’m fond of “I led the pigeons to the flag”. But also, I live with a mumbler, so my days are filled with mondegreens. Whee!
@Cat Lady Margaret My favorites are “There’s a bathroom on the right,” and “Washing the defectives.”
Favourite mondegreen: Bob Dylan: The ants are my friends”
@Rachel from Cornwall Hold me closer Tony Danza
A decent challenge and fun to boot. I liked the SCIFIMOVIES and MUSICPRODUCTION crosses. Baseball fans: anyone consider PITCHCOUNT for “What suggests that relief is at hand?”
@SP I was on your wavelength. I got BALL early so I was trying to fit something like ERRANT or STRAYS or something at the beginning.
If you’re not in the mood for BORSCHT, ROTI, PORK, OLIVEs, or PECANs, this may come in handy when you want A BITE TO EAT ... What a friend we have in cheeses
Welp. That was a good Tuesday.
@Richard All Friday for me. So many alternative answers seemed to fit right in as I worked the across clues. Your initial guesses were clearly better than mine.
@Richard nothing interesting to say about the clever puzzle?
Billy Bragg, the English folkie, used to mention at his gigs various mishearings of his lyrics. I rather liked 'she's still got my donkey' instead of 'she's still got my door key' and 'a reggae band they called the Diggers' instead of 'a ragged band they called the Diggers.' It'd be a great name for a reggae band!
@Shaz My favorite is from the City and Colour song "The Grand Optimist." The correct phrase is "burdensome times" but the mondegreen I found on a guitar tab had the line as, "You give him buttons sometimes, and he will escape unscarred."
Great puzzle! Lots of fun cluing, but not enough to make me late for work. Of course, I can always find something to make me late for work. Lucky for me, I'm a volunteer, so I won't get fired! Re: ARE WE A THING: I don't think I ever had the nerve to ask a question like that, but, the last time I dated someone other than my husband (and I didn't need to ask him that, it was obvious from day 2), was in 1972... or earlier, maybe. I'd like to think I've grown a spine since then. I've certainly grown a lot of other things. Lost a few too (gall bladder, uterus, hearing, hairs, etc.). Come to think of it, my spine has undergone some changes over the years as well... okay, enough of that. I'll be 73 in a few weeks, and my self-image has matured enough to say I can be an EARLY RISER, but only if it's for something fun. Or A BITE TO EAT; I'm always up for that! But truly, I HAD NO IDEA this part of life would be so much fun! So what if I'm reluctant to make LEFT TURNS in a strange area after dark? Or if I'm now SOUR ON bicycles? I now love THAI food and ROTI and so many other foods, and no longer have to travel to NYC to get them! Enough fun and games...time to get cracking! See you tomorrow!
@Marlene I used to be an EARLY RISER; transitioning from the Army to college cured me of that. As for 11D, I remember when it was "Will you go with me?" back when "going with" was an escalation to exclusivity, as opposed to merely "going out with."
I was going to ask who a STRESS cALL was made to, but I happened to look at the blog and I see that it's a STRESS BALL. What's that? Something you squeeze? Does it work? I saw the "relief is at hand" clue and thought of the old ad: PLOP PLOP, FIZZ FIZZ. That's an inside joke for us olds. I also thought of something like an ACTIVE BULLPEN. The one thing I didn't think of is STRESS BALL. I HAD NO IDEA. I am not an EARLY RISER. I venerate Ben Franklin in many ways, but I sure wish he had left this maxim out of his sayings. It's caused me a lot of "tsk-tsks" in my life from the morning people who have always felt morally superior but who really just have a different body clock. You were thinking of gnats and fleas and mosquitoes and bees, too, right? A world-class clue for GATE CHANGE. ARE WE A THING? asks the puzzle. "Are we a pair?" asks Steven Sondheim. Personally, I'd prefer to be part of a pair than part of a thing. SONGS perplexed me, like, forever. For most of my life, singers didn't "cover" SONGS, they just sang them. And I've never said "that's my favorite cover of the song" either. I said "that's my favorite VERSION." Where did I learn this strange use of the word "cover"? Was it right here in the NYTXW? A good crunchy Friday that gave me quite a workout in places.
@Nancy I really wanted MOUNDVISIT to hold up in that space
@Nancy Just a squishy ball. It works as well as one would expect.
@Nancy Oh what a relief it is!
@Nancy I think "cover" emerged for situations where a song really 'belongs' to one singer and anyone else who sings it is just covering what has already been established. Think 'Killing me Softly' by Roberta Flack or 'Over the Rainbow' by Judy Garland.
I had my own private mondegreen for over 60 years and didn't realize it until maybe as recently as 5 years ago: The first original cast musical theater album I possessed was "Annie Get Your Gun." I sang happily and lustily along with Ethel Merman at the tender age of 6 or 7 -- Ethel being the only female theater star who sang in my key. I loved belting out: "If I shot a rabbit, Some furry little rabbit For a coat that would warm someone..." Very recently I was gobsmacked to discover that the lyric is: "If I shot a rabbit, Some furrier would grab it For a coat that would warm someone..." I guess at that tender age I had no idea what a furrier was.
For those feeling left out because you didn't get the pop-up, here it is sans formatting. What vou need to know: The New York Times Crossword increases in difficulty, from easy, medium on Monday to very hard on Friday and Saturday. Sunday's puzzle is in the middle • Fill in answers vou know for sure. and build out from there • Don't be afraid to guess. • If you get stuck, put the puzzle aside and come back later. Getting one new answer may have you up and running again. Have fun! Will Shortz Daily Crossword Editor Let's play
Vaer, Thanks! Now I just keep opening the comments, scrolling down to here, and shaking my fist at the sky. Over and over and over. Nice to be able to join in… :)
@Vaer The thing is, it's very good advice for people who want to solve these things, especially for a newcomer. And it doesn't hurt the rest of us to be reminded how walking away for a while can be helpful. But one doesn't need it to pop up every single time you opened up the puzzle in the app. That was definitely a mistake. But they fixed it very quickly. There was also a similar pop-up from Joe for the mini, which no one mentioned, which happened and then went away at the same time.
I always heard Freddy Mercury sing: "You've got mud on your face, big disk brakes."
🎵🎶 Woopie tie eye yo Get a long little doggie 🎶🎵 and wondering what in the heck a cowboy is gonna do with a dachshund.
@Mike R He trades it in for a DOGIE (Long O, one g)
Just too many things I didn’t know in this puzzle. Not bad but way out of my wheelhouse for this to be enjoyable. Oh well.
How about turning off that annoying welcome pop up?
Fun puzzle! And my contribution: “Just call me angel in the morning, just brush my teeth before you leave me…”
When my son was young he thought a Christmas song said "The Verge and Mary had a baby boy," and he asked us who The Verge was.
Huh - I always thought ‘moe-in da green’ was about how ‘lawn’ only sounds like ‘Lon’ to some people, and ‘Moe’ is a more apt name for a groundskeeper. Don’t you hear it too? For whatever reason, today the GRID existed with no waffles for me at all. But a fun one.
Gladly the cross-eyed bear (and the ants are my friends). In the vicinity of dad jokes, so right up my alley(oops). Still a good long workout for me, but an enjoyable solve. And, an appropriate puzzle find today. A Wednesday from October 2, 2013 by Paula Gamache. Theme answers in that one; *PRINTSOFTHIEVES *LOSINGPATIENTS PRESENTSOFMIND JUMPATTHECHANTS Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/2/2013&h=43a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/2/2013&h=43a</a> Oh, and the asterisked answers also appeared in a Wednesday puzzle from August 9, 2023 by Caryn Robbins and Matthew Stock. And the other two answers in that one: GHOSTLYPRESENTS NOCHANTSINHELL Here's that link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/9/2023&h=59a" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=8/9/2023&h=59a</a> I'm done. ....
@Rich in Atlanta I'm now waiting for all the complaints from those meticulous enunciators who will say, "But there's no T in 'prince'!" Some of us were not raised by Mary Poppins.
Jesse, congratulations on your second child and on the great puzzles you've crafted! Sorry to see you go, and hope to see you return as a puzzle maker. As for mondegreens: I was a child in Philadelphia many decades ago, and grew up in a classical music-loving family. For years I thought the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra was U.G. Normandy (Eugene Ormandy, for the young'uns out there.)