Pomporruta is the name that receives the confusion and erroneous interpretation of verses of songs or poems. This error arises mainly from the homophony of the words and phrases that are interpreted in these lyrical elements.
A pomporruta slightly or totally changes the meaning of sentences. Generally, in songs, some phrases are not easy to understand. This makes people, either by the sound of the instruments or by the similarity of the phrases, understand something totally different.
It is worth clarifying that a pomporruta occurs when something that has been memorized is reproduced phonetically. For this reason, the term is not applicable to the contexts of everyday speech or transliteration produced from a text.
Origin of the word pomporruta
In English, the synonym for pomporruta is mondergreen. The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term after interpreting ” and Lady Mondergreen ” in a song that actually read: ” and laid him on the green “. The term mondergreen was coined in 1954.
In Spanish, pomporruta was used, according to the registry, for the first time in 1976. Filmmaker Fernando Colomo made a short film called “Imperial Pomporrutas”. This recording contained a scene in which an actor describes the fallacy that gives the name to this phenomenon.
Examples of pomporruta
There are very popular pomporrutas because they are common mistakes in different countries. These are mainly taken from fragments of songs in different languages.
A well-known pomporruta in the Spanish language is the common confusion of saying “she slept in the heat of the embers” instead of “she slept in the heat of the masses”. This fragment is part of the song “De música light” by the legendary Argentine group Soda Stereo.
Another common pomporruta in the Spanish language is to exchange the expression “Guantanamera” for the wrong “Juan Talavera”. These words are part of the popular Cuban song that bears the same name and that has been performed by various artists over time, including the artist Compay Segundo.