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Books Related to The Ants Are My Friends Martin Toseland - ISBN: 1906032068
Who you gonna call? Gus Foster. - Rated
Overall very amusing, with a few laugh out loud moments. This is one for dipping into rather a continuous read. I'm in a number of networks of pedants, and this is a useful addition to the pedant's armoury.
Interesting mishearings of song lyrics that almost create a new song (see the title to this review), along with more serious reflections on how language can change by accident by people mishearing or failing to understand the meaning of words - for instance hoping "it all goes well for the future" replacing "augers well for the future."
This is Toseland's first book, I very much hope that this does not represent a "flash in the pants" and that we see more from him.
Not exactly original, but highly amusing - Rated
My friend Chris was convinced for most of his life that Otis Redding's famous song '(Sittin' on the) Dock of the Bay' was actually about sitting on the top of a train. This is what this book is all about, misheard song lyrics being just the tip of the iceberg. There are words that come out wrong - but FEEL right! - which are called 'eggcorns' these days, apparently. Finally, there are words used incorrectly, malapropisms, like 'pineapple' when you mean 'pinnacle' and so on.
If only this was more original, I would have given it five stars. As it is, we already have Gavin Edwards's brilliantly illustrated series of books of misheard song lyrics (mondegreens) including Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly, He's Got the Whole World in his Pants etc. True, this goes further, but we've already seen a lot of it (and, frankly, 'You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman' is more amusingly misheard as 'You Make Me Feel Like a Rash on a Woman' than this book's rather dull 'You Make Me Feel Like a Man and a Woman').
That said, this is very funny, ideal reading matter for the 'smallest room' and does at least record Jade Goody's contribution to the English language. I can't believe I just wrote that last sentence.
