Always on the lookout for these pieces, I asked my partner, “Any column ideas?” She gave me a puzzled look. “Any coalminers’ ears?” It took a moment to get that sorted out. She’d just produced an excellent example of a mondegreen.

A mondegreen is a phrase misheard or misinterpreted in a way that gives it a new meaning, like in Chinese whispers. My favourite mondegreen is the line from Madonna’s song, Like a Virgin: “ touched for the very first time” that many hear as “touched for the 41^st time”, which, to be honest, sounds much more appropriate.

Another great mondegreen is the line in each verse of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising, “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” often heard, entertainingly, as “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Christmas songs (and not just shepherds washing their socks by night) are noted for their mondegreens: from “Good King Wences last looked out..” as we children used to sing (actually, “Good King Wenceslas looked out…”) to “Olive the Other Reindeer” (“all of the other reindeer,” a line from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.) We always thought Olive was cruel. (“Olive the other reindeer/ Used to laugh and call him names…”)

The mondegreen term was coined by the American writer Sylvia Wright in an essay in 1954 entitled The Death of Lady Mondegreen, inspired by a misheard line from an old Scottish ballad: “…They hae slain the Earl o’Moray/And laid him on the green.”

‘Mondegreen lyrics can get messy.  According to some Robert Palmer sang in Addicted to Love: ‘Might as well face it, you’re a dick with a glove.’

There are many mondegreen examples in the Bible, such as, from Psalm 23, one featuring that secretive figure in the scriptures, Mrs Murphy: “Surely good Mrs Murphy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (“Surely goodness and mercy…”). And poetry has the crazy, wild battle cry from The Charge of the Light Brigade: “Haffely, Gaffely, Gaffely, Gonward.” (“Half a league, half a league, half a league onward.”

But it’s popular song lyrics that feature mondegreens most often. In one of the first, Elvis grumbled in Hound Dog: “You ain’t never pornographic and you ain’t no friend of mine.” Meanwhile, the Rolling Stones promised in Beast of Burden: “I’ll never leave your pizza burnin’.” And Bob Dylan sang, “The ants are my friends/ They’re blowin’ in the wind.”

The Bee Gees were mondegreen specialists. In Staying Alive, their lyrics were heard as “Steak and a knife/Steak and a knife” but also as “Sayin’ a lie/ Sayin’ a lie.” They confided in More than a Woman that, “Your man’s a woman/your man’s a woman to me”,’ this view backed up by “Bald-headed woman/ bald-headed woman to me.” Meanwhile, the Stones sang, “Hey, Hugh, get off of McCloud” and, in Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix said, “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy” (“kiss the sky”).

Mondegreen lyrics can get messy. According to some Robert Palmer sang in Addicted to Love: “Might as well face it, you’re a dick with a glove.” In Losing My Religion, R.E.M. suggested, “Let’s pee in the corner. Let’s pee in the spotlight.” (“That’s me in the corner…”). The Scandinavian group Aqua’s accents turned their hit Barbie Girl into “C’mon body, let’s go potty.” (“C’mon, Barbie, let’s go party.”) AC/DC, in You Shook Me All Night Long, actually sing “She had the sightless eyes” and not “She had me circumcised” though Bon Scott’s jeans made that pretty clear.

When I was a child my father had a complex double mondegreen concerning a housekeeper, Glad (short for Gladys), we had after our mother died. Glad was a martyr-type in thick glasses who was given to heavy sighing during the simplest task. He referred to her (secretly) as “Gladly the cross-eyed bear,” a mondegreen from a hymn: “Kept by Thy tender care, gladly the cross I’d bear.” His mondegreen, grammatists would say, was actually something called an eggcorn, because there’s an intended connection in meaning.

My father was also an exponent of the reverse mondegreen, as in the 1940s song: “Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey. A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe.” (Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid’ll eat ivy too; wouldn’t you?”)

But it’s the pledge made by American schoolchildren that’s the best example. The real words are: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

But most kids say, “I pledge a lesson to the frog of the United States of America, and to the wee puppet for witches’ hands. One Asian, in the vestibule, with little tea and just rice for all.”

Robert Drewe’s most recent books The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon are on sale here: penguin.com.au/RobertDrewe

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I was quietly pleased to read the other day that child psychologists now think it’s great for young children to have imaginary friends. Phew. At last John Gordon can step out of the shadows.

John Gordon was my imaginary friend between the ages of about three and five. He was my age, looked like me, and had the same interests, though I always chose our games. He was luckier than me in one respect: he had a dog and I badly wanted one.

As a playmate, John Gordon sometimes needed help doing complicated things like climbing flights of stairs while carrying brimming glasses of water, and he didn’t appreciate being teased by my Uncle Ian when doing so.

“Whoops! I accidentally tripped up John Gordon,” my uncle said one day. “And there he goes, tumbling down the stairs! And he’s spilt his glass of water!”

John Gordon was inconsolable. And so was I. Even Jemmy, the imaginary dog, wasn’t too happy.

My son Jack used to have an imaginary friend called Datesy. Every morning as I walked him to pre-school, he’d point out a Range-Rover that was customarily parked nearby. “That’s Datesy’s car,” he’d say. “He and his parents are shopping in the supermarket. They’re buying eggs and carrots and shampoo.”

“They must like eggs and carrots,” I remarked after several weeks of the same story. “And have very clean hair.”

“Yes, they’re a healthy family,” he said solemnly.

One morning, as he was starting Big School, the Range-Rover wasn’t there. “I wonder where Datesy and his family are,” I said.

“Oh, their house burnt down,” he said matter-of-factly. “They’re all dead.”

“Mandy would much rather have imaginary friends who were real than real friends who were imaginary.”
― Rebecca McNutt, Smog City

A lawyer I know used to have an imaginary friend called Mr Dummy. Mr Dummy was a stockbroker who lived in Bellevue Hill and collected vintage cars. Already showing the character traits of the ultra-conservative lawyer he would become, the five-year-old was quite clear about this. Mr Dummy would often play Monopoly with him, but was always argued out of winning.

One day, presented with a baby brother, the budding lawyer had no further need of Mr Dummy as a playmate. Asked what had happened, he said dismissively, “Oh, him. He’s gone to live in Old Kent Road.”

The unfortunate Mr Dummy and the Datesy family notwithstanding, imaginary friends are now regarded by psychologists as beneficial to children. Once thought by some to be indicators of mental illness, fantasy characters are now seen to develop kids’ social, linguistic and cognitive skills.

A recent paper by La Trobe University and the University of Manchester concluded that children with imaginary friends were advantaged throughout their lives, grew up to be better communicators and were more creative and achievement-oriented.

The child psychologist John Rosemond told the Sydney Morning Herald that parents needn’t be concerned about young children telling fantastical stories – like a four-year-old insisting he rode a dragon and defeated an evil wizard.

“Some parents mistakenly think these stories are lies and must be punished, but this isn’t lying. By definition, lying is either harmful to other people or meant to deceive. A four-year-old who insists he rode a dragon and fought a wizard is guilty of neither.

“With a child this age who is otherwise functioning normally, this isn’t anything to be concerned about. They’re simply highly imaginative, and the imagination of a child is a thing to be treasured, especially in these digital times.

He had something to add: “Please, parents, don’t give pre-schoolers digital, screen-based devices to occupy themselves. There’s no evidence that these gadgets produce future computer geniuses, and growing evidence that they interfere with normal brain development. Young children need to be engaged in play that’s self-directed and open-ended.”

Young children also needed to play by themselves. The ability to regularly play independently for at least an hour at a time was the best marker of good development in a three-year-old. So if your youngster is playing in his room, chattering away as if there’s another child there (but you know there isn’t), don’t go and “check.” Leave well enough alone.

Many successful adults have had imaginary friends. The author A.A. Milne gave his character Christopher Robin a friend called Binker: “Binker — what I call him — is a secret of my own. And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone. Playing in the nursery, sitting on the stair, whatever I am busy at, Binker will be there.“

“See!” I remarked to John Gordon. He and I — and Jemmy, too — were very pleased to hear of all this. “We’re OK.”

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I’m no psychoanalyst, but what’s behind the impulse that makes some people think: “Gosh, I badly need to go to the toilet. But hold on a minute, I’d better take a marker pen with me.” It’s puzzling.

We’re talking public toilets, of course, and the longstanding human need to write crude or pornographic messages on their walls and doors. Furthermore, in order to further express one’s righteous anger at the world’s unfairness, what a good idea it would be to tear the toilet seat off its hinges and block the system with toilet rolls.

Has there ever been a public lavatory that hasn’t been the subject of toilet rage? So why does this anger exist? You’d think if the perpetrators really hated that necessary amenity, they’d be in and out of there pretty smartly.

Toilet wit and imagination are another thing, however. Being fortunate enough to have this column as a creative outlet, I’ve never felt the need to write personal messages to unknown future toilet visitors, or draw exaggerated genitalia for the creative appreciation of forthcoming patrons.

But many people obviously have this deeply felt want, and always have, as I was reminded by Professor Mary Beard’s SBS program, Meet The Romans. When Pompeii was consumed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, and frozen in time, many buildings were so well preserved that archaeologists – and tourists — today can still read the graffiti and see the phalluses and acts of congress the Romans scrawled everywhere on their lavatory walls.

Any of these examples remind you of a 21st century public-toilet wall? Only the cleanest ones have been selected here. (Those Romans!)

“Phileros is a eunuch.” (Written by an enemy?)

“Oppius, you’re a clown, a thief, and a cheap crook.” (Ditto.)

“Celadus makes the girls moan.” (Obviously written by Celadus.)

“The man I am having dinner with is a barbarian.” (An unhappy date?)

“To the one defecating here, beware of the curse. If you look down on this curse, may you have an angry Jupiter for an enemy.” (Goodness knows.)

“Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th Legion, was here last night. Only six women came to know him, too few for such a stallion.” (Definitely written by Floronius.)

“Virgula to her Tertius — you are one horny lad.” (Either a happy girlfriend or Tertius himself.)

“Virgula to Tertius again — You are a nasty boy.” (Probably her that time.)

“Virgula to Tertius — You got me pregnant.” (Definitely her that time.)

Unsurprisingly, the wittiest graffiti is usually found in university toilets. Such perpetrators like to air their recent lectures in philosophy (Nietzsche crops up a lot), have time on their hands, strong opinions — and a ready supply of marker pens. People committed to a political candidate may write propaganda on a loo wall. (Swastikas and peace symbols are equally popular.) Football fans may also cheer on their teams in this manner.

As in Roman times, of course, many people want to publicise negative facts about others. A dumped lover may advertise the fact that “Darren has herpes”. What better place to announce it than in the recognized public square for all matters crude and disgusting.

Meanwhile, as the old idea of a romantic lad carving his and his girlfriend’s name on the bark of a tree has faded with the forests, statements of love these days (“Lachlan 4 Ruby 4 Ever”) are likely to be found in a high school toilet stall.

Then there’s these recently reported contemporary messages:

“Don’t date a guy unless he buys you stuff.” (Sage advice in the local surf club’s Ladies’ loo.)

“My girlfriend follows me everywhere.”

“No, I don’t.” (On the wall of the club’s Gents’.)

In my lifetime, the everyday word for the particular convenience has changed from lavatory, to toilet, to loo. Delicate American sensibilities prefer “going to the bathroom” (where, oddly, there’s no bath) or “the restroom” (which, strangely, contains nowhere to relax). Other twee expressions include “the little girls’ room” where one goes to “powder your nose”.

If someone asks to use “the WC” (for water closet), they’re probably from yesteryear. “Loo” originated in Britain, where “lavatory” is also preferred over “toilet” by well-bred types, some of whom might also ask to “use the facilities”.

Not my grandmother: she chose instead to “spend a penny”. But I doubt she took a pen with her.

Robert Drewe’s most recent books The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon are on sale here: penguin.com.au.local-wildlife

fremantlepress.com.au/books

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Robert Drewe discovers that Stating the Bleeding Obvious has somehow become a well-respected profession.

Regular readers might have noticed that this column is intrigued by the absurdities of everyday life. One of these follies – an easy target, I know — is the regular, highly focussed and presumably expensive research into something so bleedingly obvious that it defies common sense.

But – I hear you say — our assumptions and guesses should be challenged by rigorous academic research wherever possible, lest civilisation fall into emotional and intellectual sloth. Evidence needs to be gathered to test those commonplace conventions and lazy suppositions, blah, blah.

So as an all-season Byron beach lover it was with great interest that I read in the Guardian of this important study: “Assessing Preferences of Beach Users for Certain Aspects of Weather and Ocean Conditions: Case Studies from Australia”, the work of researchers Fan Zhang and Xiao Hua Wang from the University of NSW, published in the International Journal of Biometeorology.

Their research was most comprehensive. Homing in on three of Australia’s biggest, most populous tourist beaches, Bondi, Surfers Paradise and Narrowneck, also on the Gold Coast, every day at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m. for three years, they used the services of CoastalCOMS’ people-counting computer program to count the number of people on the beach and in shallow water from webcam images.

To discover all the details of what was happening at each beach on those times every day, they obtained weather and ocean-behaviour data – air temperature, relative humidity, cloud cover, wind speed and the amount of rain, water temperature and wave height – from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and other agencies. In a nutshell, their study was endeavouring to find out, once and for all, what sort of weather beachgoers prefer.

Seriously. And this is what their research discovered: “The conditions preferred by beach users, as found in this study, are: no precipitation, higher temperatures, light-to-moderate wind speed (less than 30 km/h) and low wave height (up to 1.25m).” So at last we can announce, with some certainty, that Australian beachgoers prefer good weather.

(But wait, you cry: they only researched three beaches. Isn’t additional intense and specific research necessary before we can definitely know if beachgoers at every other beach in the country also prefer fine weather?)

Nevertheless, Beachgoers Prefer Fine Weather now enters our list of Recent Research into the Most Bleedingly Obvious Subjects, joining our current favourite study discoveries.

In no particular order these are (truly): Hanging is Bad for the Heart; Racists Are Close-Minded; Umbrellas Protect You From the Sun; Bad Relationships Depress People; Cheaper Fruit and Vegetables Attract More Buyers; Reality TV Skews Reality; Drugs and Driving Don’t Mix; and Young Women Are Attracted to Musicians.

Morbid research results first. The Emergency Medicine Journal confirmed that hanging is indeed not good for the heart. Researchers reviewing Melbourne’s emergency departments’ medical records found that four per cent of cardiac arrests were the result of hanging. The studies showed that when someone hangs themselves, the heart stops.

As for racists, a study published in the journal Psychological Science reveals that, sure enough, racism either produces or parallels a closed mind. Racists tended to be biased in other areas as well as race, and to score low in creativity and sociability.

As for umbrellas, according to the journal JAMA Dermatology, although they’re typically designed to shield you from the rain, they can also block harmful UV rays. Black umbrellas block 95 per cent of rays, the others 77 per cent. Umbrellas provide shade. Who would have thought it?

As for people buying more fruit and veggies when they’re cheaper, and bad relationships depressing people, and reality TV skewing reality, and drugs and driving not mixing, these were so far beyond bleedingly obvious, so self-evident, that I couldn’t be bothered looking up the research involved.

However, the assertion that young women find male musicians sexually attractive needed some evidence. It was provided, in part, by the journal Psychology of Music. Its study had a young man ask young women on the street for their phone numbers while he held either a sports bag, a guitar case or nothing at all. Carrying nothing at all or the sports bag got an equally negative response. When holding the guitar case, however, he did very well.

So all those unsporty Northern Rivers boys taking up the guitar in the hope of getting chicks are not too wide of the mark, after all. Unfortunately the research did not show any results for a test subject wearing a suit and glasses and carrying a violin, cello or tuba case.

Robert Drewe’s latest books are The Local Wildlife and Swimming to the Moon.

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Digby Hildreth reviews Robert Drewe’s latest book, Swimming to the Moon, a collection of Drewe’s newspaper columns and finds them wry, entertaining and insightful.

Prolific Northern Rivers-based novelist Robert Drewe long ago mastered the short-form newspaper column, telling stories, exploring the goldmine of memory and providing insightful educational précis in about 700 finely crafted words.

Among the 50 vignettes offered here, there’s much that provokes loud laughter, such as the piece Sitting Backwards on Chairs, which turns a sceptical eye on the movie cliché used to signify male earnestness. “The hero (a cop, a reporter, a private eye) can only nut out the problem in hand by spinning a chair around and sitting on it backwards,” he notes, although the serious professional men in films, doctors, judges and so forth, “always sit on chairs the right way round”. Just as, he wryly observes, “…in my experience, do all men discussing problems in real life”.

Swimming to the Moon examines such conundrums of popular culture (including popular names for children and their increasingly outlandish spelling variations), makes small histories out of the everyday (such as the loss of his grandmother’s generation’s seemingly endless talent for baking cakes, biscuits and puddings, each lovingly recalled, their sweet delights still fresh in the memory).

There’s more: stirring recollections of an early childhood in Melbourne, followed by a coming of age in WA, with all its golden glow of nostalgia and wince-making efforts to woo his town’s brown-limbed girls.

His “West Australianness, for want of a better description, is more accepting than it was back then. Though more sharply tuned by experience, it’s also more romantic and sentimental”.

Romantic perhaps, but Drewe never lapses into sentimentality. He has too sharp a sense of irony, of the absurd; he’s too curious about today to be mooning about the yesteryears.

And some things are always with us: mention of WA’s doublegee prickle segues into a mini essay on the bindii, which has recently unsheathed itself once again for the summer season, to punish any barefoot chancers. “Prickles” is devoted to the horrible, painful phenomenon but, characteristically, Drewe doesn’t dwell on his personal encounters with the spiky weed, to bleat about the discomfort induced by “the devil’s claw”, but looks more deeply into his subject to reveal, wonderfully, that one type of bindii (Tribulus terrestris) is used by men (and gym junkies) to boost muscle growth and sexual performance. However, he warns (always going that further step into discovery), a study of sheep that ate the plant showed they developed the staggers “and couldn’t mount”.

He gets out and about, revelling in the desert, the shores of the Southern Ocean, and country pubs and fairs, whose activities offer so much to the writer’s eye. “You couldn’t make this stuff up,” he says of the elaborate, often sadistic, shenanigans of the local agricultural show. He doesn’t have to invent material but, as they say, it’s the way he tells ‘em.

Whether drilling down into the details of everyday life, finding the extraordinary in the mundane, navigating his past and current connection with landscape and family, or mocking the vanities of the present age, Drewe maintains his quiet, amused tone: his writing is droll, vivid, clear-sighted, nuanced. He is, above all, witty and entertaining, a restless, inquiring mind shaped by an enviable sense of wonder and expressed through a gift for the exact word.

Swimming to the Moon is, as he remarks about plunging into the ocean after a scorching day, “as good as it gets”.

Swimming to the Moon by Robert Drewe.

Fremantle Press, rrp $29.99 pp224

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