Friday is your last chance to submit your favourite mondegreen to Merriam-Webster. “Mondegreen” is one of the new words M-W has added to the M-W Collegiate Dictionary this year, meaning “a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung.” The original name comes from the mishearing of  “laid him on the green” in an old Scottish ballad as  “Lady Mondegreen.” Other examples:

  • Row, row, row your boat, life is but a dream = Row, row, row your boat, life’s a butter dream
  • The answer my friends is blowin’ in the wind = The ants are my friends

I was interested to find out how M-W chooses the new words accepted for the dictionary. “As soon as we see the word used without explanation or translation or gloss, we consider it a naturalized citizen of the English language,” said Peter Sokolowski, an editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster. “If somebody is using it to convey a specific idea and that idea is successfully conveyed in that word, it’s ready to go in the dictionary.”

Other words that made it this year: air quotes, mental health day and prosecco.