Spoonerism

Named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), who would oft switch letters around (see metathesis) when he spoke, the spoonerism is a now legendary slip of the tongue. Some of the Reverend Spooner's 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?" 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 "Our queer old Dean", "We'll have the hags flung out", "a half-warmed fish" and "Is the bean dizzy?"

In modern terms, spoonerism refers to any swapping of letters in this manner. While dimple enough to sue, a clever spoonerism is one that fesults in a runny 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 likelyhood predate Rev. Spooner.

See also: Pun

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Spoonerism

Modern Translation: Spoonerism

Language		Translations for "spoonerism"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
German		Schüttelreim. (various references)

Greek		παραδρομή γλώσσασ. (various references)

Hungarian		két szó kezdőbetűinek felcserélése. (various references)

Italian		metatesi (metathesis). (various references)

Manx		Spooneraght. (various references)

Pig Latin		oonerismspay

Russian		перевертыш. (various references)

Swedish		omkastning av bokstäver. (various references)

Vietnamese		sự nói ngọng. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations & Misspellings: Spoonerism

Anagrams: Spoonerism

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "e-i-m-n-o-o-p-r-s-s"
	-1 letter: empoisons, moonrises, poisoners, roominess.
	-2 letters: empoison, erosions, imposers, ionomers, moonrise, oosperms, peonisms, poisoner, poorness, primness, promines, promises, ropiness, semipros, snoopers, snoopier, spoonier, spoonies.
	-3 letters: eonisms, erosion, impones, imposer, imposes, impress, ionomer, isomers, merinos, mispens, moonier, morions, mossier, noisome, noosers, oosperm, operons, orisons, orpines, peonism, persons, poisers, poisons, porisms, premiss, prisons, promine, promise, prossie.
	Words containing the letters "e-i-m-n-o-o-p-r-s-s"
	+1 letter: compression, spoonerisms.
	+2 letters: compressions, gossipmonger, monodisperse.
	+3 letters: angiospermous, compressional, decompression, endomorphisms, gossipmongers, impersonators, mispronounces, morphogenesis, operationisms, postmodernism, postmodernist, promotiveness, reimpositions.
	+4 letters: anisometropias, chemisorptions, comprehensions, decompressions, impersonations, postmodernisms, postmodernists, precombustions, protectionisms, recompositions, treponematosis.
	+5 letters: noncompressible, operationalisms, overcompressing, pharmacognosies, polymerisations, professionalism, promiscuousness, promotivenesses, superimposition, trypanosomiases.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Expression	Frequency per Day
spoonerism	168
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "spoonerism": spoonerisms. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Spoonerism" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: spoonerise, Spooners. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Spoonerism

Definition: Spoonerism

Spoonerism

Noun

Crosswords: Spoonerism

Specialty Definition: Spoonerism

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Spoonerism

spoonerism

Modern Translation: Spoonerism

German

Greek

Hungarian

Italian

Manx

Pig Latin

Russian

Swedish

Vietnamese

Derivations & Misspellings: Spoonerism

Derivations

Misspellings

Anagrams: Spoonerism

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

INDEX