Sylvia Wright coined the term "mondegreen". She described how, as a young girl, she misheard the final two lines of the verse of The Bonnie Earl O' Moray.
They hae slain the Earl o' Moray And lain him on the green. as "they have slain the Earl o' Moray, and Lady Mondegreen."
She said that she refused to hear the real words, because they were less romantic than her misheard version.
My earliest recollection of this is as a child singing the carol with the line "The shepherds washed their socks by night"
Sometimes you cannot hear a song without hearing the missung words. The one I can never sing properly is So Lonely/Sue Lawley by the Police.
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