I could not help but be intrigued by my friend Eric’s recent Facebook post:
“...you know that you need your reading glasses when you click on a link
to “Paleo Sandwich” on the internet and it turns out to be an article on
a baseball player named Pablo Sandoval...”
Hmmm. Paleo Sandwich, Pablo Sandoval.
That post elicited a comment that went as follows:
“This made me laugh out loud. Beeecause... the other day, I saw an ad that I could’ve SWORE said something about a sphincter. I looked again and it said “specialized.”
I’ve experienced similar misreads... and as I get older, I find that this phenomenon occurs more frequently. One
example: as we were stopped at a red light yesterday evening, I saw a
license tag that said (I thought) “Okeechobeee” below the tag number.
But when I realized that it was a Georgia plate, I also realized that
Okeechobee - which may refer to either a lake or a county in Florida - made no sense. Closer examination
showed the word to be “Oglethorpe.” Aha.
That, Esteemed Readers, is a mondeseen - the newest coinage in the Cheese-Aisle Dictionary.
mondeseen [mon-de-sin] (n): a word or phrase that is initially misread due to faulty eyesight, glitchy brain function, or a combination of both.
Mondeseen is a spin on the term “mondegreen,” meaning a mishearing of song lyrics or spoken words. The difference is that the focus is visual, not aural: misreading rather than mishearing.
Another example: While in the pet store a few days ago, Dee saw a sign that she initially read as “Cow List.” After the inevitable double-take, she realized that it said “Low Cost.”
I experience mondeseens frequently, and the number seems to be accelerating. I attribute this to my declining distance vision, coupled with changes in my mental acuity that I hope are the result of normal aging processes and not a rapid freefall into drooling senescence.
Time will tool, I suffuse.
[Other entries in the Cheese Aisle Dictionary may be found here.]
Sunday, April 10, 2016
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2 comments:
.... hahah..... nice one...... I remember coming back to the states after many years away in other countries and reading a sign that said, "coin laundry"..... I was filled with pride in America that such a place existed where you could go and have your coins washed.......
Eric
Hmmm... this comment is not only appropriate for this post but the one below it.
And there is actually a place where coins are laundered... literally. I refer to the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, where the coins that go in the till are actually washed, a tradition that goes back many years.
More here.
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