Spoonerisms

I was exceedingly frustrated the other day. It was a small irritation, (getting into the car with gloves, key not working, belt not latching, glasses fogging, sort of thing) yet I was reduced to using a familiar swear word. I have recently read an article about the origin of swear words, and followed with the book “Swear words and other ways to be completely misunderstood” by Peter Freeman. There is a chapter in the book titled Spoonerisms that caught my eye. It is more civilized than writing about swear words. Both are equally interesting. Yet, I don’t want to be censored for writing about swearing, so I’m choosing the later topic for this week, so my slog won’t be busbecked.

What I Meant to say

I thought you were anxious to leave,

but I wonder if I heard you correctly,

was it that you were luscious to grieve,

waxing to heave or rushing to weave?

I was looking for your batter wattle that was left

with its sip of teepy-slime sea inside and failed

to pay attention to what you were saying.

We’ve been moving like a turd of hurdles

all morning, but our sparking pace is still vacant,

so we can spark the par bass ackwards and be able

to get out again in no time. Let’s met a groove on

so we can get to the store before it closes.

For those of you who don’t read spoonerisms, here’s the translation for those phrases:

batter wattle                                (water bottle)

wip of sater                                 (sip of water)

teepy-slime sea                            (sleepy-time tea)

turd of hurdles                             (herd of turtles)

sparking pace                              (parking space)

spark the par bass ackwards          (park the car ass backwards)

met a groove on                            (Get a move on)

The English language has a great propensity for misunderstandings. To a linguist like myself, the English language has much to study, admire and laugh at. Words mean different things to different cultures and sub-cultures, and even different people in the same sub-culture. When words in a sentence get mixed up, we usually call it a ‘slip of the tongue’.  It’s when we aren’t quite sure what we’re saying; you’re not quite sure what you’re hearing.  (@2007-2018, Newport and Eaton) When this happens accidentally—as in slips of the tongue,  we might say tips of the slung as Spoonerisms are often affectionately called!

If you have made a verbal slip, don’t worry, it’s just a whimsical lapse of your nimble brain. One of my favorite skits or stories of backward talk, is Archie Campbell’s Rindercella where she ‘slops her dripper at the fall’. This famous skit pokes fun at the slip of tongue and helps us all laugh at ourselves. It’s simply spoonerishious.

When you are talking and your mouth is moving faster than your brain, it is the epitome of the verbal summersault. The Greeks had a word for this type of impediment long before Spooner was born: metathesis. It means the act of switching things around.

Spoonerisms are a different ‘fettle of kitsch” it is when the first letter or syllable of words in a sentence are transposed or swapped and refer 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  (Reverend Spooner’s Tips)

Spoonerisms happen when the cognition coordination breaks down, often because of the interference of external or internal stimulus, such as stress.

Spoonerism– noun. the transposition of initial or other sounds of words, usually by accident. (1895-1900 after W. A. Spooner (1844-1930), English clergyman noted for such slips). ~ Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabriged

Caused by coordination Breakdown. … When we get a phrase right, our brains have successfully coordinated this frame with the sound of a word. Spoonerisms happen when this coordination breaks down, often because of the interference of external or internal stimulus such as stress, illness or trying to multi-task.  (Sep 24, 2009)

 Cognitive Psychologists now believe that we produce language in clumps rather than one word at a time. The study of spoonerisms has helped scientists formulate these new theories. Spoonerisms may seem like random mistakes, but, in fact, they follow a regular set of rules. When two sounds are transposed between two words, they are almost always sounds that belong in the same positions.

For example, the beginning of one word almost never exchanges with the end of another. The close association your brain makes between two words such as “barn” and “door” indicates that your brain chose those words as a unit, rather than one at a time.

“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.”  (“Reverend Spooner’s Tips of the Slung”)

The Reverend William Archibald Spooner was born in 1844 in London. He became an Anglican priest and a scholar who grew up to lectured in history, philosophy, and divinity at Oxford University. He served as dean from 1876 to 1889 and as Warden or President from 1903 to 1924, for a total of 60 years at Oxford University

Spooner was a small,  pink-faced albino with poor eyesight, and a head too large for his body. He seems also to have been something of an absent-minded professor, with a genial, hospitable and kindly reputation. Yet, Spooner’s mind was so nimble his tongue couldn’t keep up, so his tendency to cross beginning sounds of words created a reputation for something else as well.

He once 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.”  (from: www.fun-with-words.com/spoon_history.html)

Some slips of the tongue or spoonerisms attributed to W.A. Spooner are: “The Lord is a shoving leopard.”, “it is kisstomary to cuss the bride.”, “Mardon me padam, this pie is occupewed. Can I sew you another sheet?”, “We’ll have the hags flung out.” and “He was killed by a blushing crow.”   (from: English Swear words and other ways to  be completely misunderstood, by Peter Freeman

Thanks to Reverend Spooner’s style-setting somersaults, we can laugh and applaud that gentle man who lent his tame to the nerm. May sod rest his goal.

One of my favorite skits or stories of backward talk, is Archie Campbell’s Rindercella where she ‘slops her dripper at the fall’. This famous skit pokes fun at the slip of tongue and helps us all laugh at ourselves.

As Spooner might have said, “Which of us has not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?”  I think he was trying to say half-formed wish.

The miracle of the English language is that with all the ways we can—and do misspeak, confuse each other, fail to interpret or understand something, we still manage to communicate fairly well.

Resources:

English Swear words and other ways to  be completely misunderstood, by Peter Freeman

“Spoonerisms Galore!” by Matthew Goldman at: https://matthewgoldman.com/spoon/

“Lirty Dies” by http://www.capsteps.com/lirty/

“9 Spoonerisms (and other twists of the tongue)”by Stacy Conradt, Oct. 25, 2017,  Mental Floss at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/24330/quick-10-10-spoonerisms-and-other-twists-tongue

“Reverend Spooner’s Tips of the Tongue” from History or Spoonerisms in the article appeared in the February 1995 edition of Reader’s Digest Magazine and is found at: http://www.fun-with-words.com/spoon_history.html

“Rindercella” at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0tz98kt-f0