Do me a favor. Scroll to the bottom of this post and read the last line aloud. Chalk it up to a singalong. Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to continue reading. Go on, I’ll wait.
I’ve been working like an animal lately. I don’t know what kind of animal, but it just works when I say it with authority. I feel like Smithers, all hunchback from the toiling over my keyboard, a pallor from the glow of my monitors. Bags, you say? Luggage, my friend. Unshowered (this should be a word), with I just licked a bunny mouth, working until 10pm almost every night this week. In a word: crapass. In a real word: wretched.
I’ve been inventing words long before I hit OnceWife or InfatuHated. It began when I was two. I called milk, "blulka," which is awesome because milk sounds like blul-ka. My battle cry of "shmee," meant "give me my juice." I’d like to say it was my way of butchering, “give it to shmee,” but actually shmee just meant juice. I never said I was brilliant.
Here, let me prove it. Not all that long ago, I genuinely believed the idiom was "French benefits." “Not that long ago” meaning a fistful of years, but still, a Barnard Graduate ought to know you can’t sew oats or fall by the waist side. I mean, for all intensive purposes, I should really still be in high school. High school was hard, harder than college certainly. And now, of course I don’t remember most of it, so I’ve put myself on an e-learning diet. 1 serving of U.S. Map screensaver. A homepage portion of periodic table. And, Don’t Know Much About History via myPod for dessert, a second helping to disc two if I’m feeling gluttonous. I feel like I should still know how to do a mathematical proof. I tutored people in calculus in college, yet I still count on my fingers. I kind of like that I do, makes me quirky in that good way. It’s amazing how dumb can pass as quirky. Just look at the geniuses who can even make the manish Julia Stiles seem cute because she won’t eat the skins of tomatoes in some chick flick trailer where she’s jumping on a bed. Ah ignorance, it’s not bliss; it’s quirky. At least my locust of control orientation is in check; I mean, I am doing something about it.
Today, for example, Avril Lavigne’s, Complicated peaked my interest. I had no idea what she was saying when she whined, “promise me I’m never gonna find you fakin’” As in what? Faking an orgasm ‘round somebody else, worse, everyone else? So I looked it up. It can’t be fakin.’ Close enough. “I’m never gonna find you fake it.”
I fake idioms with authority. Case and point, this post is riddled with all of my idiot idioms, but I can top that in the retard category. I am a lover and champion at faking song lyrics. Misheard lyrics is just a good time. For me, karaoke is a learning experience each and every time.
Smelly Clarkson’s Since You’ve Been Gone
“Since you’ve been gone, I can’t breathe for the first time.”
David Bowie’s Ground Control To Major Tom
“This is ground control to major tower.”
Prince’s Little Red Corvette
“Miracle Corvette.”
Disney’s The Little Mermaid’s, Part of Your World
"Pregnant women, sick of swimming, ready to stand." What? "Bright young women" get pregnant all the time.
I love etymology almost as much as karaoke. Most of my mangled mistakes are anchored in a history of fat. I thought, "Two faced" meant, "You have a double chin." And when someone first said to me, "Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth," I actually cried. Mommy, Hillary called me a horse.
And incase you missed it, I know it’s fringe, sow, wayside, intents, locus, piqued, and case IN point. Touché.
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it's also Julia Stiles, not Styles.
i can relate. i always thought "chest of drawers" was "chester drawers" – some sort of english furniture style.
You should really cut yourself some slacks, Stephanie and learn to row with the punches. Don't be so hardened, yourself.
Oh, we're halfway there.
Oh! Livin' on bread.
Livin' on BREAD!
Bon Jovi always seemed hungry to me.
Isn't the phrase: for all intents and purposes?
And I might be crazy, but I think you can SEW your wild oats. What else would you do with them??
This website is ludichrist!
The English teacher in me just couldn't resist:
"please don't remind me of what you 'gave up' for me because the whole sorted mess makes me feel like. . ."
Or, "the whole SORDID mess". My dad always said "Learn something new every day," so I guess today is a good day for idioms. :)
Here's my biggest faux pas: I thought a "notary public" was actually a "noter republic" or something like that.
My 2 favorite music mistakes:
There's a bathroom on the right = There's a bad moon on the rise
Excuse me while I kiss this guy = Excuse me while I kiss the sky
My song mistake… Red Eye Love instead of Radar Love.
Thank you Kara. I fixed it. And I love learning something new. It's like a snack of nibbley bits.
Like going to a french restaurant and not finding orderves on the menu.
I would be remissed if I didn't congratulate you on a funny post.
Gotta run out and rent and old Donna Meche flick!
My personal fave, Aaron Neville:
Everybody plays with food.
Wow. This post was just sort of … wow.
Sort of… ALL OVER THE PLACE. This is what happens when work knocks you on your arse. I'm a master at digression. You should search this site for "in my head for a day." It's a free vacation to Crazy. Patsy Cline is optional.
I'm glad that you mentioned that you're a Barnard graduate. We're proud of you!
My bad: "This is the best thing since life spread" instead of "This is the best thing since sliced bread." Eek! Now *that's* embarrassing.
Just a question, and no offense intended (I'm a Vassar grad, so am all about the 7 sisters), can you say you went to Columbia when you actually went to Barnard? How intertwined are the two schools? Is it like Harvard/Radcliffe, or can you go to Barnard and cross-register for classes at Columbia and then sort of say you went to Columbia?
Just wanted to congratulate you on Sunday Styles. Looking at it online now and you look great.
Lain
I was onto your little game there but still managed to miss piqued. That one gets me all the time. Tks for the misunderstood lyrics link. Very funny. By the way, did you know that Manfred Mann's real name is Michael Liebowitz? Jewish boy makes good.
I always thought "a New York minute" meant whenever the f*** I want too.
(as opposed to really, really, fast)
My version of that Manford Man song was:
"Wrapped up like a douche on a roller in the night."
geez, I can't even pell their band name right. Thank you for the music site. Maybe I should have put Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
Thanks to:
http://www.amiright.com/misheard/index.shtml
You are a Barnard Graduate ? WOW – even our decent schools are in a bad state. Everyone has problems -life is hard. But you don't come off as very intelligent. Sorry, just being honest.
I wonder if I could possibly receive any more emails saying;
"Darling, it is 'intents and purposes.'
Rather fitting, to err in a rant about erring…"
Um, learn to read.
derek is right, it's "intents and purposes". This kind of malapropism is really fascinating, do you do it automatically, Stephanie?
stephanie, i read about your emerging fame in the new york times, and i congratulate you. indeed, your meteoric success may propel you into the stratosphere of people like Richard Stands* and Beth Israel**. i wish you all the best!
* i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for Richard Stands …
** a hospital network in manhattan and elsewhere
you all know what the longest letter in the alphabet is, right? it's elemeno — h, i, j, k, elemeno, p …
does anyone know how to get to The Port of Authorities? i think it's on 8th ave.
Have you ever been tested for dyslexia? No kidding! Sound discrimination differences are what it's all about. It's just a different way of perceiving the world and part of what makes your perceptions worth reading.
Great spot to read what others think is being sung…
Left out of my previous post….
http://www.kissthisguy.com
N, i tried to test for dyslexia, but all the words were jumbled up so i became frustrated and left.
I can relate to the wrong song lyrics thing:
http://psilocide.blogspot.com/2005/03/tin-man.html
It's "case in point," not "case AND point"…
I feel you on the song lyrics. Not only did I think that Kelly Clarkson was singing "I can't breathe for the first time" – I had an entire other chorus written in my head.
"Since 'u' been gone,
I can't breathe for the first time.
I'm sooooooo in love, yeah, yeah.
Next to you, now I get what I want."
I was so confused later on in the song when she seemed angry with him. It seemed so sudden. I had thought it was a sad song…
Some oldies:
Robert Palmer, Simply Irresistible – "she's so fine; there's no telling where her mother went." (I think that's because my mom wouldn't let me wear miniskirts and all the models in the video had them on.)
Ice, Ice, Baby: "Stop. Carbonate and listen."
And of course, "doggy dog world."
(and yes, i actually googled irresistible before posting this because i was so unsure of how to spell it…)
It's not entymology you're interested in- on a very basic level it's phonology and semantics (entymology is the study of the history of a word and how it originated). As for song lyrics, there are interesting phonological patterns to what a person can actually think they heard. Here's a fun site: http://www.kissthisguy.com/
Not to get too pedantic, Matt, but the Manfred Mann song is actually a Bruce Springsteen song, and while the original lyric is "(cut loose) like a DEUCE," MM does, in fact, sing "(wrapped up) like a DOUCHE." So you didn't hear it wrong; he sang it wrong.
The song's true composer addressed the long-standing confusion recently, on VH1's Storytellers, by noting that while a deuce (type of sports car) and a douche (feminine hygiene product) are certainly not the same thing, MM's version of the song reached #1, while Bruce's version (the opening track on his first album) is known only to his diehard fans. The Boss's takeaway? "The people have spoken."
I always thought it was "wrapped up like a douche, another boner in the night," and I prefer my lyrics. My most flagrant screw-up though has to be with Steve Miller's "Jungle Love." For the first two years of college, I thought it was a drinking song with "jungle love" being "chug-a-lug."
Thanks jewsaleh!
I LOOOOOOOOVE your name! Thanks for the info, just a "I Did Not Know That",
Johnny Carson kinda moment.
Here's a new word for all to enjoy- Jackhole. This little nugget came to me about 2 months ago as I was taking care of one of our horses, Restrike, aka Snort. Snort is a 26 year old retired racing throughbred, and unlike the rest of our throughbreds, he's short. I mean really short, and has short man's syndrome. He loves my mother, and all of the "ladies", but is a total ass for me-gelded late in life.Go figure!
So one day, as I was cleaning his grain bucket, I noticed that he took a serious crap in his bucket.Not just a few apples, but a full on breakfast and hay dump.As I was surveying the situation, He looked at me with the most contented look, almost as if to say, "See what you have to clean up?" and he turned his nose up at me and started nodding his head like he knew what I was thinking. So I just turned to him and said, "Snort, you're a jackhole", which is a carefull cross between all of the rotten features of a asshole and the funny features of a jackass. And as if to say he understood, he gave me a look like, "I am not". And ever since, when he tries to be a jerk(he thinks it's funny to push me into walls, which my horse won't do), I can call him a Jackhole, and it's as though I have called Rick Santorum a gay porn lover, and meant it! His "feelers" may be hurt for a minuite, but he still knows where the carrots come from, and from where the rubs on the forlock come.
Is this already a word? Maybe so, I don't know. Or for that matter, are we really the first to use it in a common vernacular?
PS-hope you appreciate the round about way it came to being. Twas quite the day,actually.
Glad to know that I had always heard the "douche" part of the MM song correctly, although I did grow up wondering how one should properly wrap a douche…
My most recent lyric malfunction that stuck with me:
"I got the big cheese, I got your ass-wipe"
I am a master of lyric mangeling.
There is a song I'm not sure what the exact lyrics are but I sing it – "one toe over the line sweet jesus" – I have also heard it as "one toke over the line". Then there is the Dobbie Brothers song China Grove – which I always sang as tally ho!
Oh I have a few more:
williams and sonomo
pepcid and a.c.
Jackhole is the name of the production company that Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel, and Daniel Kellison have and it produced "The Man Show," "Crank Yankers" and other wonderfully adolescent shows. So, I don't know if others have used jackhole in the way Geoffrey does but it's a term that has been out there in some form for a while.
For what it's worth, I think Clarkson doesn't ennunciate "I can breathe…" very well. I've been thinking that line doesn't make much sense for months now.
Thanks Jyah13-I did not know that whatsoever. But leave it to them…..
You are dewriteful!Don't ever stop reaching!
awesome blog!
i can really relate to the entries i've read so far.
I used to think the words to that song were: Blinded by the light. Wrapped up like a douchebag for the runnner in the night.
Beat that!
there's this song by JOE, i think the title was I wanna know. Anyways, for the longest time i thought the lyrics were:
…i want to know just what you want
so i can be your POKEMON…
pikachu, is that you?