Subject: Fwd: Spoonerism
Spoonerism
Let us salute the eponymous master of the verbal somersault, the Rev. William
Archibald Spooner. He left us all a legacy of laughter. He also gave the
dictionary a new entry: spoonerism. The very word brings a smile. It refers to
the linguistic flip-flops that turn "a well-oiled bicycle" into "a well-boiled
icicle" and other ludicrous ways speakers of English get their mix all talked
up.
English is a fertile soil for spoonerisms, as author and lecturer Richard
Lederer points out, because our language has more than three times as many
words as any other – 616,500 and growing at 450 a year. Consequently, there's a
greater chance that any accidental transposition of letters or syllables will
produce rhyming substitutes that still make sense – sort of.
"Spooner," says Lederer, "gave ustinglish errors and English terrors at the
same time."
Born in 1844 in London, Spooner became an Anglican priest and a scholar. During
a 60-year association with Oxford University, he lectured in history,
philosophy, and divinity. From 1876 to 1889, he served as a Dean, and from 1903
to 1924 as Warden, or president.
Spooner was an albino, small, with a pink face, poor eyesight, and a head too
large for his body. His reputation was that of a genial, kindly, hospitable
man. He seems also to have been something of an absent-minded professor. He
once invited a faculty member to tea "to welcome our new archaeology Fellow."
"But, sir," the man replied, "I am our new archaeology Fellow."
"Never mind," Spooner said, "Come all the same."
After a Sunday service he turned back to the pulpit and informed his student
audience: "In the sermon I have just preached, whenever I said Aristotle, I
meant St. Paul."
But Spooner was no featherbrain. In fact his mind was so nimble his tongue
couldn't keep up. The Greeks had a word for this type of impediment long before
Spooner was born: metathesis. It means the act of switching things around.
Reverend Spooner's tendency to get words and sounds crossed up could happen at
any time, but especially when he was agitated. He reprimanded one student for
"fighting a liar in the quadrangle" and another who "hissed my mystery
lecture." To the latter he added in disgust, "You have tasted two worms."
Patriotic fervour excited Spooner as well. He raised his toast to Her Highness
Victoria: "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" During WWI he reassured his
students, "When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung
out." And he lionised Britain's farmers as "noble tons of soil.".
To a stranger seated in the wrong place: "I believe you're occupewing my pie.
May I sew you to another sheet?" And Did Spooner really say, "Which of us has
not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?" he certainly could have – he was
trying to say half-formed wish.
Lederer offers these other authentic spoonerisms: At a naval review Spooner
marvelled at "this vast display of cattle ships and bruisers." To a school
official's secretary: "Is the bean dizzy?" Visiting a friend's country cottage:
"You have a nosey little crook here."
Two years before his death in 1930 at age 86, Spooner told an interviewer he
could recall only one of his trademark fluffs. It was one he made announcing
the hymn "Kinkering Congs Their Titles Take," meaning to say "Conquering
Kings."
So if you have made a verbal slip, rest easy. Many have. Radio announcer Harry
Von Zell once introduced the president as Hoobert Heever. And Lowell Thomas
presented British Minister Sir Stafford Cripps as Sir Stifford Craps.
© 1995 Reader's Digest Magazine
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