List some oronyms (phrases or sentences that can be read in two ways with the same sound).
language/english/pronunciation/oronym Added material
Problem
List some oronyms (phrases or sentences that can be read in two ways with the same sound).
Show solution
The word "oronym" was coined by Gyles Brandreth, The Joy of Lex,
William Morrow, New York, 1980. Such phrases are also call
"mondegreens" or "junctures."
Phrases:
a name an aim
a nice chest an ice chest
a notion an ocean
append up end
bang cat bank at
be quiet Beek Wyatt
bean ice be nice
beast of burden pizza burnin'
bee feeder beef eater
beer drips beard rips
buys ink buy zinc
Caesar seize her
catch it cat shit
catch ooze cat chews
Cato Kay toe
cedar fences sea defences
cider sight or
damn pegs damp eggs
field red feel dread
forced air four stair
fork reeps four creeps
form ate four mate
freed Annie free Danny
giant size giant's eyes
grade A gray day
grasp rice grass price
great ape grey tape
her butter herb utter
hiatus Hy ate us
history his story
homemaker hoe-maker
I scream ice cream
I stink iced ink
it sprays it's praise
it swings its wings
kaleidoscope eye colitis goes by
keep sticking keeps ticking
known ocean no notion
lawn chair launch air
London derriere Londonderry Aire
massive mass of
may cough make off
Mikey's my keys
music album musical bum
new Deal nude eel
new development nuder velopment
new direction nude erection
night rate nitrate
pawn shop paunch op
peace talks pea stalks
Pete's mother Pete smother
pierced ears peer steers
pinch air pin chair
play taught plate ought
plum pie plump eye
scar face scarf ace
seal eyeing see lying
see Mabel seem able
see the meat see them eat
seize ooze see zoos
sick squid six quid
sixty sick sheep sixty-six sheep
slide rule sly drool
standards-based standard-spaced
stay dill stayed ill
that's tough that stuff
the suns rays meet the sons raise meat
thing call think all
tour an two ran
tulips two lips
twenty six ones twenty sick swans
we'll own we loan
well done other weld another
white shoes why choose
yelp at yell Pat
your crimes York rhymes
outh read you thread
Sentences:
And [laid him on the green/Lady Mondegreen].
Any [grey day/grade A] would be bad news for one professor I know.
Are you aware of the words you have [just uttered / just stuttered]?
Eugene O'Neill won a [Pulitzer Prize / pullet surprise].
Gladly, the [cross-eyed / cross I'd] bear.
[He's had an attack / He sat on a tack].
He's a relic of the [dock cages / Dark Ages].
He would kill Hamlet for [that reason / that treason].
How did you do in the [contest / Kant test]?
I don't know how [mature/much your] people enjoy such a show.
I have [known oceans/no notions] that you yourself couldn't imagine.
I like [sadder day/ Saturday].
If it keeps on [it singes its wings / its hinges, it swings].
If you listen you can hear the [night rain / night train].
I'll [leave 'n' / even] say goodbye.
I'm taking [a nice / an ice] cold shower.
It's a [dog eat dog / doggy-dog] world.
It's a [Grade A / grey day] today.
It's hard to [recognize speech / wreck a nice beach].
[Michael / Mike will] row the boat ashore.
Oh, no! [This guy/The sky] is falling!
On the coastline they are strengthening the [cedar fences / sea defences].
[Pinch her ear / Pinch her rear].
She's now in the [low weighties / low eighties].
[Some others / Some mothers] I've seen.
That is [all most / almost] interesting.
That reflects the [secretariat's sphere / secretariat's fear] of competence.
That's the [biggest hurdle / biggest turtle] I've ever seen!
The cost [of futilities / of utilities] is to high.
The Focus Farm is where the [sun's rays meet / sons raise meat].
The girl with [kaleidoscope eyes/ colitis goes by].
The good [can decay many ways / candy came anyways].
[The sky / This guy] is falling.
The [stuffy nose / stuff he knows] can lead to problems.
They played the Bohemian [Rhapsody / Rap City].
We [needed a cantor / need a decanter].
Where is the [spice center / spy center]?
[White shoes: / Why choose] the trademark of Pat Boone[./?]
You'd be surprised to see a [mint spy / mince pie] in your bank.
See also:
the archive entry "malaprop"
the archive entry "telegrams"
References:
Barry, W J, 1981, Internal Juncture and Speech Communication,
Arbeitsberichte. Institut fu"r Phonetik. University of Kiel. Vol 16.
Brandreth, Giles, _The Joy of Lex_, 1980, New York: William Morrow and Co.,
pp. 58-59, who coined the word "oronym"
Cutler & Butterfield, Rhythmic Cues to Speech Segmentation. Evidence
from juncture misperception, 1992, Journal of Memory and Language, Vol
31(2) 218-236 Provides materials in context frames where the
alternative segmentations lead to one Vs two word parsings: in furs Vs
infers.
Fowkes, Robert A., Juncture: Where It Sat, Verbatim, VI-2, Autumn 1979
Grice, Martine and Hazan, Valerie, 1989, The assessment of synthetic
speech intelligibility using semantically unpredictable sentences,
Speech, Hearing and Language, Work in Progress, University College
London. The inferior quality of the synthetic speech often caused more
than one type of error at once (bright eye -> dry tie).
Hoard, James E., `Juncture and syllable structure', Phonetica 15,
1966, 96-109
Hockett, Charles F. Hockett, _A Course in Modern Linguistics_, New York:
Macmillan, 1958, 54-61
Lehiste, Ilse. 1960. An acoustic-phonetic study of internal open
juncture. Phonetica 5 (supplement). pp. 5-54.
Nakatani L. H. & Dukes, K.D., 1977, Locus of Segmental Cues to Word
Juncture, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol 62, pp
714-719 and
Price P, Ostendorf M, Shattuck-Huffnagel S & Fong C (1991) "The use of
prosody in syntactic disambibuation" JASA 90 (6) pp2956-2970. It has
some good examples,
Additional material
[ Editor: from a May 1994 thread "Transcription Errors"; examples
already in the entry are omitted. ]
When transcribing audio tapes, some interesting errors can occur if a
group of words sounds the same as another group (Kind of like
homophones but not quite). In some cases you can figure out what was
actually said from context:
Audio: .... I'd like your input on this project.....
Transcription: .... I'd like urine put on this project......
or sometimes you can't:
Audio: ....Democrats support a tax on Republicans .....
Transcription: ....Democrats support attacks on Republicans ...
-- Robert Galejs <galejs@ll.mit.edu>
Known Ute axes!
No newt axis!
Know gnu taxis!
Funny, I forget what the original was supposed to be...
-- Richard A. Schumacher <schumach@convex.com>
Why does the porridge bird lay his eggs in the air?
Whine doesn't poor rich barn lazy legs in the eire?
-- Martin H. Booda <booda@lynx.navo.navy.mil>
I once had an pirated tape from Indonesia of Simon and Garfunkel's
greatest hits. Lyrics were included, and for the chorus of "The
Boxer", which goes "La da di, la la la la la da di...", they'd
transcribed "Lady Di, Lady Lady Lady Di...".
-- Robert Orenstein <rlo@netcom.com>
About 20 years ago there was a newspaper report of an example in
"Hansard" (the transcript of all speeches in the House of Commons), in
which "Hertfordshire" appeared as "half a chair".
Urban legend or not? I have no intention of reading the last 30 years
of Hansard to check.
-- J.E.H. Shaw <strgh@uk.ac.warwick>
Isaac Asimov once based a Black Widowers story on the ambiguity between
(SPOILER, rot13) "V jvyy fraq gur znahfpevcg gb Zbeebj" and "V jvyy
fraq gur znahfpevcg gbzbeebj". The title was, I think, "The Next
Day".
-- Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>
soup or salad super salad
-- Pat Hennessy <patnsc@netcom.com>
"It looked deficient" - "It looked efficient"
-- Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>, October 1993, "New oronym (if oronym is
the word I want)"