Favorite Spoonerisms

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name’s Kat, and I’m from Escondido, California.

Hi, Kat, welcome.

Hi, Kat.

Hi, I wanted to talk about spoonerisms today.

Like, you don’t really hear that many spoonerisms nowadays.

Like, I can only think of a couple of them in our modern idiom, you know, like maybe punk and drublik or T-mini martoonies, that kind of thing.

T-mini martoonies.

And they only usually refer to being inebriated or something like that.

Those are the only ones I can think of.

You know, why don’t we use spoonerisms more?

Doggone it. Why don’t we?

I don’t know. It’s a really good question because they’re just the natural part of the humor of language, right?

Mm—I read a book that was just nothing but spoonerisms when I was in middle school, and it got me really into them.

Okay.

So they’ve stuck with you ever since. Do you use a lot of them yourself?

No, I don’t, but I can always pick them out in other people’s conversations, and I get really excited when they do.

Sure, because we say them and we don’t notice them, right?

Mm—

What are some of your favorites?

Well, I remember some of the ones like from said spoonerism book where, you know, lovers killing and booing instead of billing and cooing.

Oh, that’s nice.

You know.

Yeah, that’s nice.

A few like that.

Oh, that’s very good.

I like to go back to some of the classics.

What was his name?

Was it William Spooner, the Reverend Spooner at Oxford who was?

It was Dr. Spooner, I think.

Right, Dr. William Archibald Spooner.

Oh, very nice.

Oh, there we go.

He was known for doing this, and this is where we get the word spoonerism, right?

Right.

Because his last name is Spooner.

And the long phrase that he supposedly uttered, you have hissed all my mystery lectures.

In fact, you have tasted two whole worms and you must leave Oxford this afternoon by the town drain.

And what he meant was you’ve missed all my history lectures and you’ve wasted the whole term and you must leave this afternoon by the down train.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He also raised a toast to our queer old dean rather than our dear old queen.

Although, you know, what I’ve read suggests that Reverend Spooner actually got kind of a bad rap.

Oh, really?

Yeah, he was known for doing all these transpositions, but it turns out that it sounds like most of them were done by Oxford college students with too much time on their hands.

By definition, an Oxford student.

Yeah. And the other thing about spoonerisms that I’ve noticed is that so many of them give you a little snickering chance to sort of do a double entendre.

Yeah.

I mean, people talk about the story of Rinda Seller instead of Cinderella.

-huh.

You know, she slopped her dripper.

Or I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Me too.

Oh, I’d love that one.

Yes. Yes.

So, yeah. So you’re a big fan of spoonerisms.

It’s kind of an old-fashioned pursuit, making up new spoonerisms.

Do you make your own?

You know, sometimes I do.

I’m generally kind of an old-fashioned person.

I’m really interested in Victoriana and that kind of thing.

Kat, all due credit, but you sound like you’re 22.

I’m 26.

Okay.

So old-fashioned at 26.

Very good.

Well, Kat, this is interesting.

I’m sure we’ll get lots of spoonerisms favorites from our other listeners, and we’ll share those in the show.

Hopefully.

I look forward to hearing all of them.

Put that in your poke and smipe it.

Thank you so much, Kat, for calling today.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Oh, I just remembered, we forgot to mention that book by Shel Silverstein that was published after his death, Runny Babbitt of Billy Sook.

Well, Kat has a great idea.

What are your spoonerisms?

Send your favorites to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call, 877-929-9673.

These are sure to be a lot of fun.