Spoonerism

Spoonerisms are a kind of word or phrase pun that have humorously switched or transplanted sounds (see metathesis), named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), who often spoke these aloud. Some of his famous (and possibly apocryphal) quotes from the chapel include "The lord is a shoving leopard," "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride," and "Mardon me padam, this pie is occupewed. Can I sew you to another sheet?." The spoonerism is a now legendary 'slip of the tongue.'

Other gaffes worth mentioning are his angry speech to a student, "You have hissed all my mystery lectures, and were caught fighting a liar in the quad. Having tasted two worms, you will leave by the next town drain," actually intended to say missed history, lighting fire, wasted terms, and down train. A few more which you can probably work out for yourself include "We must drink a toast to our queer old Dean", "We'll have the hags flung out", "a half-warmed fish" and "Is the bean dizzy?"

President of the United States George W. Bush is known for curious turns of phrase, some of which may be considered spoonerisms. "If the terriers and bariffs are torn down, this economy will grow." (January 7, 2001 in Rochester, New York).

Proper spoonerisms

In modern terms, spoonerism is any swapping of letters in this manner. While simple enough to do, a clever spoonerism is one that results in a funny sentence. The Capitol Steps have successfully done a few political comedy routines based on this premise. The comedian Ronnie Barker played the Reverend in a sketch on The Two Ronnies TV show.

Spoonerisms are prolific in a few other languages. For example, the quirks of the Finnish language (such as vowel harmony) lend themselves well for this purpose, and Finnish 'sanankäännökset' ('word-turnings'), mainly used in jokes, in all likelihood predate Rev. Spooner.