5 ms·
> Some are mondegreens, a term coined by the author Sylvia Wright when she heard “And laid him on the green” as “And Lady Mondegreen.” (“ ’Scuse me while I kiss
by nailer 4y ago
> Some are mondegreens, a term coined by the author Sylvia Wright when she heard “And laid him on the green” as “And Lady Mondegreen.” (“ ’Scuse me while I kiss this guy” is a mondegreen for Jimi Hendrix’s lyric “ ’Scuse me while I kiss the sky”, and Taylor Swift’s long list of ex-lovers are lonely Starbucks lovers.)
Oh there’s a word for this. The first time I was in the U.S. I was looking for an ATM and someone said there was a biyouvet down the road. I wasn’t sure what a biyouvet was but it sounded French and exotic. I asked them if the biyouvet had ATMs and was assured it did, and went on my way to find the aforementioned biyouvet - before I could though I found a Bank of America which did in fact have ATMs.
- stratosgear 4y agoDo not get the 'biyouvet' reference. Care to elaborate?
- dmurray 4y ago"B of A" = Bank of America
- stratosgear 4y agoI know the BofA acronym for Bank of America, but still i cannot connect it with biyouvet... :( Note: non native English speaker, if that matters...
- hairofadog 4y agoThe person directing them to the ATM said “B of A”, and the person looking for the ATM heard “bi youv ay”, which they thought was a word they hadn’t heard before. “B of A” = “bi yuv ay” = “biyouvet”.
- geeio 4y agonative english speaker here, I still cannot connect it either.
- therealcamino 4y agoI had the same trouble. But if you pronounce "biyouvet" like "bee you vay" as you would in French, it sounds like "B of A", for Bank of America.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dcminter 4y agoI seem to recall baffling people on my first visit to the US by asking them if they knew where a "cash machine" could be found. Either that wasn't a common term for ATM or my strong British accent confounded them.
- hairofadog 4y agoHa, people in the US should know what a cash machine is. It may have been the accent, but I’m having a hard time imagining how even the most severe British accent would make “cash machine” that hard to understand. Now if you were Scottish, on the other hand…
- dcminter 4y agoVirtually a BBC accent, so who knows? A bit later in Texas I had trouble ordering a tuna sandwich because of the stark difference between "tooona" (US) and "tyouna" (UK). To be fair they're very different sounds. The first time I was introduced to a Glaswegian colleague I just smiled and nodded because I had not the faintest idea what he was saying (the ear tunes in pretty quickly though).
- bentley 4y ago“What is a yute?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6qGwmXZtsE&t=108s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6qGwmXZtsE&t=108s
- hairofadog 4y agoBased only on personal experience, I think Scottish folks are screwing with us just to see what we’ll do.
- timthorn 4y agoYeah, the ew sound isn't commonly understood - try asking for a Mountain Dew. I've been visiting America for 20 years and I still can't get people to understand what I want to drink.