Favalon

The other day I was talking to my friend Lauren about how we both tended to mishear people often. I got to wondering about something sort of tangentially related. What is it called when someone says something, is misheard, and then changes what they say when asked to repeat themselves? Does it even have a name?

A really good example of this happens in a scene from the novel Lolita (well, the movie adaptation). Humbert, a pedophile, is traveling around the United States with a young girl, staying in seedy motels. After putting the girl to bed one night, he steps outside and another man, Q (who has secretly been following them) speaks to him:

Q: Where the devil did you get her?

H: I beg your pardon?

Q: I said the weather’s getting better.

H: Seems so.

Q: Who’s the lassie?

H: Um, it’s my daughter.

Q: You lie. She’s not.

H: What?

Q: I said July was hot.

(You can currently watch this scene on YouTube at about 10:40 into this video)

I’m really curious as to whether there is a name given to this. A lot of obscure things have had names coined for them over the years (like spoonerisms or Tom Swifties, which I love), but it strikes me that this particular thing doesn’t have a name.

If anyone knows what it is called or is able to find it named somewhere, I’d love to know.