I love Spoonerisms, mostly because I misspeak a lot. For those who don’t know the pleasure of mixing their words up as frequently as Sarah Palin says Tea Party, let me explain. A Spoonerism is when you confuse the beginning sounds of two nearby words. As a kid, for example, I babysat for a couple I repeatedly referred to as Darryl and Cale (i.e. Carol and Dale). Another infamous Spoonerism, drunkenly coined by my uncle, is wottle of bine.
The term Spoonerism is named after Reverend Spooner, a man of the cloth who lived in the latter part of the 19th century, no doubt entertaining his parishioners by accidentally swapping syllables. My husband (a faster source than Google) says that Spooner’s most infamous mix up was when he said, “May I sew you to your sheet?” (rather than the innocuous May I show you to your seat?)
Spoonerisms can be downright dangerous if you teach Junior High students. You may find yourself telling a student to “sh*t and sush” rather than “sit and shush.” Not that I’ve ever done this…
Most days, I’m not clever enough to swap two complete sounds. Sometimes, I just blend two words mindlessly.
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Tonight, while I was washing perogie-mush off of plates, Vivian decided to tell me a joke.
“Mom,” she said, “what do you call a witch at the beach?”
In my mind, I immediately solved the riddle. I thought this:
For once, all the training that comes from teaching 14-year-olds made me think before I spoke.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“A sandwich,” Vivian answered.
I laughed. At the joke and at my own b*tchiness.
Interesting you brought up Spoonerisms in today’s post. Wouldn’t you know, my maiden name is Spooner, and I, also, have a tendency to mix up words, and sounds, slip of the tongue, so to speak. Vivian has a good sense of humour.
Jennifer Spooner England
Too funny, Jennifer! I didn’t know that was your maiden name.
I am looking for jokes with spoonerism punchlines. I know a bunch of them and love them but cannot find any new ones. Here is an example: a guy calls the piano tuner whose name is Oppernockity and hires him to tune his piano. A year later the piano is out of tune again so he calls Oppernockity again and asks him to come tune his piano. The response was: I’M SORRY, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT OPPORNOCKITY ONLY TUNES ONCE. (Opportunity only knocks once).
That would have been quite the conversation if you hadn’t held your tongue.
I never knew what the Spoonerisms were called, so you managed to be educational at the same time.
A friend of mine got to adapt the saying “shake a tower” for “take a shower” and I still say that one, on purpose.
Most of my verbal faux pas revolve around my brain going on a tangent different from my mouth , and I’ll use the wrong word entirely, or just stop mid-sentence while my brain finishes whatever thought it was busy with.
Shake a tower = is a good one. Lots of joke potential too.
I hear you. I am barely able to finish a sentence most days; maybe that’s why I write.
i’m with kelly k. – often mouth and brain go different directions. and you don’t usually notice it till its too late.
E – I’m all too familiar with the “too late” aspect. Or its cousin: did-I-say-that-out-loud?
HAHAHA… I totally thought the same thing as you when I read it. B*tches of the world, unite.
Yes!
I’m with Kelly,
I frequently say random things as my mouth tries to catch up with my brain. My kids just look at me funny and move on. They’re used to it.
And yes, PrincessJenn….B*tches of the world, unite. Indeed!
Sometimes I think I’m the opposite: my brain needs to catch up with my mouth…
I thought spoonerism had something to do with snuggling? Learn something every day…
A couple of days ago I spotted the Hellcat, standing splay-legged in the middle of the boys’ room, urging P Motion to, and I quote, “Kick me in the weenus.” And he did, lightly. And she took it like a lady: rolling on the floor laughing and clutching.
Sigh.
ROFL. Growing up with brothers, I suspect. She’ll grow up knowing how to fight. When I was taking judo in my 20s, my instructor stopped me during a ground-fighting skirmish and said, “You definitely grew up with an older brother.” Yup.
I’m known more for Freudian slips.
Isn’t that something you wear…
LOL As I read through your post my mind immediately went with the B*tch answer! I frequently engage in spoonerisms and also omit big chunks of verbal dialogue because I already spoke them in my mind.
Great post….looking forward to reading more.
Thanks for commenting. I think you’re right about omitting chunks of dialogue because we speak them in our mind. Maybe they’re mental ellipses.
A new spoonerism for me this week was debating the merits of “skiboarding vs. snowing.” Ahem. That is, of course, snowboarding vs. skiing. BTW – snowboarding, hands down.
Good one. I have enough trouble walking upright in winter boots…
Bad enough when the tongue and brain separate in front of family … but I was once part of a mostly male technical committee where we used to identify authoring a proposal with our initials. I was one of two of us who were “js”. One of the 4 “Richards” on the committee, two of whom went by the nickname “Dick”, was teasing me about how there were too many “js” s on the committee, so I blurted out “Well I think there are too many Dick’s on the committee”. Oops. Years went by and I was still teased about that remark and there were no spoons in sight. Too bad it wasn’t intentional.
Too many dicks, indeed. ROFL. You have to love comments that become part of the local vernacular!
LOL! I am soooo impressed that you managed to bite your tongue. I find that hard to do, especially if I have just thought of something funny! I like the joke, I will pass it along to my children…
Thanks, Gwen. This is one of the rare times that I managed to stop myself. My husband, however, always accuses me of telling jokes in my head and then laughing out loud. “They’re funny,” I say. I think there’s a special ward for people like me.
My grandson came up with dozens of Spoonerisms as he learned to talk. My favourite was camelflage, and being a visual artist, I had to create a study for a painting around it. Feel free to edit the link out of this or eliminate if not allowed – Ineffective Camelflage: https://windinnart.blogspot.com/2025/01/grandkids-are-best-arent-they.html