A spoonerism is an occurrence of speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words of a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and priest William Archibald Spooner, who reportedly commonly spoke in this way. Examples include saying "blushing crow" instead of "crushing blow", or "runny babbit" instead of "bunny rabbit". While spoonerisms are commonly heard as slips of the tongue, they can also be used intentionally as a word play. Since the rise of the Internet and wordfilters, spoonerisms have also become deliberately used as filter-avoidance spellings of filtered terms. The first known spoonerisms were published by the 16th-century author François Rabelais and termed contrepèteries. In his novel Pantagruel, he wrote "femme folle à la messe et femme molle à la fesse" ("insane woman at Mass, woman with flabby buttocks").
Etymology
Spoonerisms are named for the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), Warden from 1903 to 1924 of New College, Oxford, who was allegedly susceptible to this mistake. The Oxford English Dictionary records the word spoonerism as early as 1900. The term was well-established by 1921. An article in The Times from that year reports that:
The boys of Aldro School, Eastbourne, ... have been set the following task for the holidays: Discover and write down something about: The Old Lady of Threadneedle-street, a Spoonerism, a Busman's Holiday...
An article in the Daily Herald in 1928 reported spoonerisms to be a "legend". In that piece, Robert Seton, once a student of Spooner's, claimed that Spooner:
...made, to my knowledge, only one "Spoonerism" in his life, in 1879, when he stood in the pulpit and announced the hymn: 'Kinkering Kongs their Titles Take' ["Conquering Kings their Titles Take"]...Later, a friend and myself brought out a book of "spoonerisms".
In 1937, The Times quoted a detective describing a man as "a bricklabourer's layer" and used "Police Court Spoonerism" as the headline. A spoonerism is also known as a marrowsky or morowski, purportedly after an 18th-century Polish count who suffered from the same impediment.
Examples
Most of the quotations attributed to Spooner are apocryphal; The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (3rd edition, 1979) lists only one substantiated spoonerism: "The weight of rages will press hard upon the employer" (instead of "rate of wages"). Spooner himself claimed that "The Kinquering Congs Their Titles Take" (in reference to a hymn) was his sole spoonerism. Most spoonerisms were probably never uttered by William Spooner himself but rather invented by colleagues and students as a pastime. Richard Lederer, calling "Kinkering Kongs their Titles Take" (with an alternative spelling) one of the "few" authenticated spoonerisms, dates it to 1879, and he gives nine examples "attributed to Spooner, most of them spuriously". They are as follows:
"Three cheers for our queer old dean!" (while giving a toast at a dinner, which Queen Victoria was also attending) "Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?" (as opposed to "customary to kiss") "The Lord is a shoving leopard." (instead of "a loving shepherd") "A blushing crow." ("crushing blow") "A well-boiled icicle" ("well-oiled bicycle") "You were fighting a liar in the quadrangle." ("lighting a fire") "Is the bean dizzy?" ("Dean busy") "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet." ("Someone is occupying my pew. Please show me to another seat.") "You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain." ("You have missed all my history lectures. You have wasted a whole term. Please leave Oxford on the next down train.")
Usage In modern terms, spoonerism generally refers to any changing of sounds in this manner.
Comedy The long-running British comedy television show The Two Ronnies regularly featured segments with Ronnie Barker delivering a mock-serious speech littered with spoonerisms, written by Barker. Writing in tribute for the inaugural Ronnie Barker Talk, Ben Elton wrote:
What an honour. I grew up loving Ronnie Barker and can only hope the news that I am to give a talk in his name doesn't leave him spitting spiritedly splenetic spoonerisms in comedy heaven.
The Washington, D.C. political comedy group Capitol Steps had a long-standing tradition of performing a routine named "Lirty Dies" during every performance, which features a typically 10-minute-long barrage of rapid-fire topical spoonerisms. A few examples over the years range from "Resident Pagan" (President Reagan) and the US's periodic practice of "Licking their Peaders" (Picking their leaders) to the NSA "poopin' on Snutin" (Snoopin' on Putin) and "phugging everybody's bones" (bugging everybody's phones). Comedian Jane Ace was notorious for her spoonerisms and other similar plays on words during her time as main actress of the radio situation comedy Easy Aces. The Season 3 Ted Lasso episode "Signs" sees Rebecca Welton bump into her ex-boyfriend who is referred to as a "shite in nining armor", a spoonerism of "knight in shining armor".
Literature Comedian F. Chase Taylor was the main actor of the 1930s radio program Stoopnagle and Budd, in which his character, Colonel Stoopnagle, used spoonerisms. In 1945, he published a book, My Tale Is Twisted, consisting of 44 "spoonerised" versions of well-known children's stories. Subtitled "Wart Pun: Aysop's Feebles" and "Tart Pooh: Tairy and Other Fales," these included such tales as "Beeping Sleauty" for "Sleeping Beauty". The book was republished in 2001 by Stone and Scott Publishers as Stoopnagle's Tale is Twisted. In 2005, HarperCollins published the late humorist Shel Silverstein's Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook, a book about a rabbit whose parents "Dummy and Mad" gave him spoonerized chores, such as having to "Dash the wishes" (for "wash the dishes"). In his poem "Translation," Brian P. Cleary describes a boy named Alex who speaks in spoonerisms (like "shook a tower" instead of "took a shower"). Humorously, Cleary leaves the poem's final spoonerism to the reader when he says:
In D. H. Lawrence & Susan his Cow (1939), literary critic William York Tindall described behavioral psychologists as "occupied with nothing more spiritual than pulling habits out of rats". (This quip is commonly cited to Douglas Bush, who used it in a lecture two years later.)
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