Monday, April 19, 2010

Right out of the shoot? Another type of YAKWIRM!














Earlier this month in her blog Jane Atkinson asked If Content is King, Are you Royalty? In that post she said that:

“Marcus Buckingham is a great example. He knew right out of the shoot how to be engaging and funny on top of great content.”

As far as I know “right out of the chute” is rodeo slang meaning at the beginning of a ride. I’m not sure what “right out of the shoot” means. It could refer either to firearms or photos. However, when I Googled those phrases I got 163,000 hits for “right out of the chute” and 192,000 hits for “right out of the shoot.”

“Right out of the shoot” is a mondegreen, which happens when a phrase (like a song lyric) is misheard or misinterpreted in a way that gives it a new meaning. Last November I came up with YAKWIRM, a long acronym for You All Know What I Really Meant. Then it referred to typographical errors, but it can equally well apply to mondegreens.

At the end of each verse of the Credence Clearwater Revival song Bad Moon Rising the lyrics actually say that: “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” Many people instead heard: “There’s a bathroom on the right,” and in concerts John Fogerty sometimes sang it that way just for grins.

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