I love mondegreens, those misheard snippets of speech or lyrics that always make me smile.
I guess we've all misheard lines or lyrics and formed our own interpretations and conclusions. When I was in second grade at Catlick school, we all had to learn the Act of Contrition to prepare for our first confession.
I was convinced that the first line of the prayer was:
Oh my God, I am hardly sorry for having offended thee...
I couldn't figure out why in the world you would tell God that you were hardly sorry for your sins. I mean, weren't you supposed to be really, really, really sorry, enough to do that horrifying penance of five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys?
It wasn't until I saw the Act of Contrition in writing that I realized that I should have been saying "heartily" instead of "hardly."
So I had to chuckle today when I read this Washington Post article on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and came across the following paragraph:
Fannie Mae has withdrawn from the market for all-day loans, which are considered risky because they require less documentation than traditional prime loans.
All-day loans. I had to say it before it hit me -- All-day loans is a mondegreen for Alt-A loans. Alt-A loans are riskier than prime loans, because in many cases they require little or no documentation or verification. On the other hand, for a while mortgage brokers and lenders were making these sorts of loans all day, so "all-day" loans may not be such a stretch.
By the way, there's a bathroom on the right.
