spoonerism
/ˈspuː.nəɹˌɪ.zəm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.33 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A play on words on a phrase in which the initial (usually consonantal) sounds of two or more of the main words are transposed.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of spoonerism.
Example Sentences
- "Undergraduates at Oxford University were playfully fond of Spooner, whom they nicknamed "the Spoo". They also coined the term "spoonerism" around 1885, after Spooner had been a fellow at New College for almost twenty years. By 1892, his reputation for absentmindedness was well known; students came to New College expecting to hear a spoonerism."
- "A Spoonerism may sometimes alter the whole tenor of a person’s career. An extremely bashful man was asked to find the elderly daughter of the house, who was in the garden, and ask her to make tea. “Miss Florence,” he said, when he discovered her in the rosery, “I have come to ask if you will take me?” And she did!"
- "I am not going to put on any weight until I’m fifty, when I shall allow myself to become matronly, ready to be a follower of ‘soda and gobbly matrons’, as enjoined by the marriage service. (A good Spoonerism that, created quite involuntarily by my mother some years ago.)"
- "Dr. Ashok suffered from a mild form of metaphasis. He made Spoonerisms."
- "I tried to concentrate on this very tiny but very fascinating scandal-ette involving a leggy blonde Russian researcher, but Jude Law – and Spoonerisms – kept distracting me […] Now Nick Herbert had just been asked about cuts to front line policing. ‘I don’t accept that those are c****,’ he said, immediately correcting himself."
- "An attached cavalry officer was called Captain Lunt. McCord employed his best Spoonerism to rename him ‘Laptain’."
Etymology
From Spooner + -ism, named after Oxford don Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), who is supposed to have habitually made such slip-ups.