Oldweather mondegreens

[Randi]

This shall henceforth be the official thread for these useless but amusing misreads.

So far we have, with "Panda" and "Fat George" additions:

"Boarded butch ship with Bed Slut by idiot. Sighted Fat George. Dated Lifebuoy. Abandon Sky"

(Transl. Boarded Dutch ship with Bed Sheet^* by accident. Sighted Fort George. Tested Lifebuoy. Abandon Ship")

And another mondegreen courtesy of randi's and my misreadings:

Panda empty. Hands to suffer. Hands murdered.

(Transl. Hands employed. Hands to supper. Hands mustered.)

It might be embellished with hyperlinks of the actual text for the misread elements. If someone were able to put little boxes with the misread text somewhere I could link to I will edit this.

Link to archive of this discussion from the old forum

^*Bed Sheet

[Randi]

"Candy officer paid official call"

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 1_0362.JPG
9am to 8pm watch, third from last line.

[Hanibal94]

So THAT's what Willy Wonka did in his youth, before setting up his factory!

[Randi]

I was working on setting up Atalanta when "tea time" caught my eye.

Sadly, it proved to be "zone plus ten time" (no scones either ).

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 6-0014.JPG

[AvastMH]

I was working on setting up Atalanta when "tea time" caught my eye.

Sadly, it proved to be "zone plus ten time" (no scones either ).

https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 6-0014.JPG

I like the idea of a tea time zone - where might this be found I wonder?

[studentforever]

Editing USS Jamestown I thought my transcriber had had a typo

'The Heroine shifted her birth'

Inspection of the forenoon watch revealed a correct transcription but my imagination boggled somewhat

http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/ ... _038_0.jpg

[Randi]

I seem to remember seeing berth spelled as birth.

I think it was in the Rodgers' log that they wrote fier several times for fire. When I looked it up I discovered that it is an old spelling of fire!

[Michael]

[studentforever]

I think the ship name added to my sense of boggle

[Randi]

Yes, that and the fact that ships are referred to as female

[studentforever]

This time the typo was mine, detected while proof reading USS Jamestown

Got out lower booms and hoisted out whale boar

Haven't managed to identify a picture of the beast!!

[Michael]

[Randi]

Well.....

[studentforever]

I think the top one might not take too kindly to being hoisted!!
Good thing it was a slip of the finger!

[Morgan]

Randi- You dig up the most intriguing items. You led me to look up Olaus Magnus; I found other of his sketches. That man must have had the most awful nightmares!

[Randi]

I joined OW ten plus years ago to help climate science, but what keeps me going is the fascinating stuff we find in the logs (directly or indirectly) and the forum community

[Hanibal94]

I joined OW ten plus years ago to help climate science, but what keeps me going is the fascinating stuff we find in the logs (directly or indirectly) and the forum community

Amen to that!

Here's one from the Manning: The 9 AM entry is "Started fires", but it really looks like "Started fries"!
https://catalog.archives.gov/OpaAPI/med ... 5_0268.JPG

[Randi]

I remember being quite shocked after reading "hit piers" on HMS Avoca (we did hit another ship once).
However, when there was no mention of damage or misconduct I took a closer look and realized that it was "lit fires"

[AvastMH]

I remember being quite shocked after reading "hit piers" on HMS Avoca (we did hit another ship once).
However, when there was no mention of damage or misconduct I took a closer look and realized that it was "lit fires"

[Michael]

From USCGC Haida, 25 May, 1922 9 AM - 4 PM

Right near the end, out of a profound, but totally misguided, hope I read:

1 copy Knights penmanship.