Mishearings

Mishearings are perceptual errors in which the listener interprets spoken language or sung lyrics as different words than those intended. They arise when sounds are similar, speech is rapid, or audio is noisy, and they can occur in everyday conversation as well as in music, poetry, or radio broadcasts. In linguistics, mishearings of lyrics are often called mondegreens. A related concept, the eggcorn, refers to a mishearing that preserves the intended meaning but changes the form, such as "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes."

Factors contributing to mishearings include phonological similarity, accents, coarticulation, lexical expectations, and context; top-down processing can lead listeners to hear what they expect to hear rather than what is actually said. Hearing impairment, age, and background noise also increase susceptibility.

Famous music-related mishearings include "There's a bathroom on the right" from "Bad Moon Rising" and "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" from "Purple Haze." In everyday speech, mishearings can produce humorous or creative reinterpretations that circulate on social media or in language games.

Mishearings offer insight into how perception and language processing interact. They have a place in folk humor, online memes, and linguistic education, illustrating the balance between bottom-up input and top-down expectations. See also mondegreen and eggcorn for related concepts.