Tom tom

Tom Waits talks about how mishearing things is inspiring. Embrace the chaos.

Communication breakdown

What I might like most about malapropisms is the absurdity, the way confusion about language leads to silly misunderstandings. It's a little twist to your brain, in the same vein as drawing tenuous connections, making everything into a metaphor, or perceiving things that aren't really happening (see: McGurk Effect). Like, chill.

New: more brilliant miscommunications I come across, starting with a bit of typo poetry from a work-related email:

"Let us know if you née anything else."

Well, maybe it's only funny to me.

This is a few lines from a recent alien sighting over Brooklyn (thanks Stefano):

"randomly looking outside of my window and noticing something strange
red yellowish objects in the sky dancing back n forth performing maneuvers no earthly object could perform the "fireballs" seemed dynamic and aware of what they were doing"

Hello nurse!

A conversation yesterday about using vintage pick-up lines like "Hubba hubba" and "Hello Nurse," made Leti's post titled "HELLOOOOOOOO NURSE!!!!" catch my eye. (The post is about the film "White Squall." Haha. Leti, you should see The Town if you're looking for serious eye candy.)

Soo, intrigued by this little Celestine Prophecy-worthy coincidence, I checked it out and learned that the vaudeville-era phrase is the origin of today's wolf whistle. Real creative guys!

Ion Like a Lion in Zion

Listening to Desmond Dekker this morning, I was telling Josh how I thought the lyrics were "tamaloo tamashoo tamaway" when he actually says, "them a loot, them a shoot, them a wail." Josh shared his own reggae confusion with "Iron Lion Zion." I like it when the misunderstanding is better than the original.

Happy Presents Day!

Quarters

Seth writes, "for the longest time, like up until a couple years ago, I thought a quarter till 8 or whatever when someone is talking about time meant 25 minutes till 8 cause a quarter is worth 25 cents."

It's true, a quarter is 25 cents. I guess Seth was always 10 minutes late or early. Fractions are the darndest things.

Masa Megos

Doug just thought I said "Masa Megos" when I asked if his post was "mas o menos" finished. META BLOGGING

It reminds of how when my grandmother started to lose her hearing, she would repeat back what she thought people were saying. Which was actually an effective way to figure out what parts she'd heard wrong. And funny.