Tuesday, March 18, 2008

A tip of the slongue

Do you ever have trouble getting your meaning across? That somehow, what you are thinking comes out with all the right syllables, sounds and letters, but they got mixed up somewhere between your brain and your mouth? Or have you ever been listening to someone speak and thought, wait did they just whip their flurds...or... spew up their screech....? Wait, I mean flip their words..or..screw up their speech...?

If you have, then we speak the lame sanguage. I'm constantly getting my mords wixed and my tang tongueled. These tips of the slongue are most commonly called "spoonerisms",

"Spoonerism; A transposition of sounds of two or more words, especially a ludicrous one. The spoonerism is named after William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), British cleric and scholar"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/spoonerisms

The Reverend Spooner was notorious for his verbal mishaps! While attending a dinner at Oxford, he was proposing a toast to the dear Queen (Victoria)." What Spooner actually said was, "Let us toast the queer dean."

As Dr. Spooner led a parishioner down the aisle of the church. He allegedly stated: "Come this way and I'll sow you to a sheet."

He is also quoted as saying;
-"It is kisstomary to cuss the bride."
-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" ("missed ... history," "lighting a fire," "wasted two terms," "down train")
-"a well-boiled icicle" ("well-oiled bicycle")
-"it's like when your car loses traction because it has tired balls" ("bald tires")

How many of those statements were actually spoken by the Rev. Spooner is debatable. There are countless examples of accidental and deliberate spoonerisms on the net and in lore.

One of the more famous (and deliberate) is; "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!" It is attributed to W. C. Fields, although there are also references to Dorothy Parker and Tom Waits as having made this statement.

One of my families favourites was from an aunt who said she had to "turk a cookey". This has been a traditional statement around holiday festivities for over forty years now!

I learned this as a kid;
"Ocifer, Ocifer! I'm not as think as you drunk I am. I only had ti martwoni's. I'm not under the afluence of incohol, though many thinkle may peep I am!"

I'm not going to use Spell check today as it would probably have a heart attack with this post! I've found some wonderful, well known short stories on the net that have been "spoonerized". I absitively, posoutly promise to share some of them with you over the next few months.

dn

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