Don’t wix up your mords!

Don’t wix up your mords!  

In this heat if you mention a sold calad, drilled chink, song liesta or going to a still hation, I am with you. Let us do it together.

No, I have not bitten my tongue, am not drunk or gone crazy. I am not even playing a game of tongue-twisters. I just found some words called spoonerisms.

According to merriam-webster.com/words-at-play

A spoonerism is a phenomenon of speech in which the initial elements of a common phrase are transposed, usually accidentally. The resulting slip is usually composed of words that are themselves familiar, leading to a humorous expression.

Example: fighting a liar instead of lighting a fire, or keys and parrots for peas and carrots.

‘I have a half-warmed fish in my mind’ (half-formed wish).

The term is named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner, the warden of New College, Oxford (1844–1930), who was said to be notorious for committing these faux pas.

Although records (Robert Seton, a student of Spooner's) say the Archibald committed only one ‘Spoonerism’ when from the pulpit once in 1879 he announced the hymn: 'Kinkering Kongs their Titles Take' (‘Conquering Kings their Titles Take’), yet he gets the credit for forming them.

American author and grammarian Richard Lederer has given the following nine apocryphal examples. Most of them were probably made up by Spooner’s colleagues and students as a pastime.

Three cheers for our queer old dean! (dear old queen, reference to Queen Victoria)

Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride? (customary to kiss)

The Lord is a shoving leopard. (a loving shepherd)

A blushing crow. (crushing blow)

A well-boiled icicle. (well-oiled bicycle)

Is the bean dizzy? (Dean busy)

Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet. (occupying my pew. …show)

You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain. (You have missed all my history lectures. You have wasted a whole term. Please leave Oxford on the next down train.)

In addition, a nosey little cook (cosy little nook) is also said to have been an original spoonerism.

Commonly considered getting one's words in a tangle, spoonerisms may also be used on purpose to play on the words. Sometimes the spellings are changed a little to make sense or not. These days they are frequently used in comedy as a device to invoke laughter.

Let me, however, be clear. Spoonerism is meant to be funny, and it is not to be confused with ‘cluttering’, a speech disorder in which speech sounds rapid, unclear and/or disorganized. The listener may hear excessive breaks in the normal flow of speech that sound like disorganized speech planning, talking too fast or in spurts, or simply being unsure of what one wants to say. (e.g., speaker says “ferchly” for “fortunately”). A speech-language pathologist is the right person to make the diagnosis and suggest therapy .

https://www.stutteringhelp.org/cluttering

Going back to spoonerisms, Capitol Steps, the political satirist group which had to close down its 39-year old ‘machine gun of comedy’ in 2020 due to revenue losses following Covid lockdowns, used to showcase a 10-minute rapid fire session of spoonerisms.

Their site https://www.capsteps.com/lirty/trump-democrats2019.html

says:

Jadies and Lentlemen, for almost yorty fears now the Stapitol Ceps have pocked molitics and pupid stoliticians. We've seen the lies, we've seen the hoes. We've always said, butt could be wetter?

(Ladies and gentlemen for almost forty years now the Capitol Steps have mocked politics and stupid politicians. We've seen the highs, we've seen the lows. We've always said, what could be better?)

The ones which linger in the memory of the audience include

Resident Pagan (President Reagan)

Licking their peaders (picking their leaders)

Poopin’ on Snutin (Snoopin’ on Putin)

Phugging everybody’s bones (bugging everybody’s phones)

But going through the following about Paris Hilton gave me a laughter fit.

Dun way, in Heverly Bills, Haris got copped by a stop. That's right, trulled over by a pooper. The pooper said, “Piss Maris, kep out of the star. I'm gonna have to give you a tethalyzer breast: please blow into the treathalyzer boob. No...you actually blow in this case.... Aha! You're skunk as a drunk.”

(One day, in Beverly Bills, Paris got stopped by a cop. That's right, pulled over by a trooper. The trooper said, “Miss Paris, step out of the car. I'm gonna have to give you a breathalyzer test: please blow into the breathalyzer tube. No...you actually blow in this case.... Aha! You're drunk as a skunk.”)(Yes, they changed some spellings as well.)

Colonel Stoopnagle, the character comedian F Chase Taylor played in Stoopnagle and Budd, a radio programme in the 1930s, used spoonerisms.

Thanks to Wikipedia I know that in 1945, Stoopnagle published a book, My Tale Is Twisted, consisting of 44 ‘spoonerised’ versions of well-known children's stories. Subtitled ‘Wart Pun: Aysop's Feebles’ and ‘Tart Pooh: Tairy and Other Fales,’ these included such tales as ‘Beeping Sleauty’ for ‘Sleeping Beauty’. The book was republished in 2001 as Stoopnagle's Tale is Twisted.

Then in 2005, Shel Silverstein wrote a book Runny Babbit: a Billy Sook about a rabbit whose ‘Dummy and Mad’ gave him spoonerized chores, such as having to ‘dash the wishes’ (‘wash the dishes’).

Brian P Cleary’s poem ‘Translation,’ is about Alex, a boy who speaks in spoonerisms (like ‘shook a tower’ instead of ‘took a shower’). The poem's final spoonerism is,

He once proclaimed, "Hey, belly jeans"
When he found a stash of jelly beans.
But when he says he pepped in stew
We'll tell him he should wipe his shoe.

Choose any source and you would find that American musician Com Truise’s name is a play on American actor Tom Cruise’s name.  

‘Punk in Drublic’ album of American punk band NoFX is a spoonerism of ‘drunk in public’ and Ritt Momney, American indie rock musician’s name is a play on US Senator Mitt Romney’ name.

Heard of Ford mustang car? Estonian musician Mord Fustang chose that name for himself.

Abraham Lincoln is said to have written on a manuscript “He said he was riding bass-ackwards on a jass-ack through a patton-crotch “, whether he personally composed this phrase or copied it is yet unknown and difficult to decipher on what context it was written.(penlighten.com)

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/spoonerism gives some other examples of spoonerism:

arty panimal (party animal)

bad salad (sad ballad)

birty dirds (dirty birds)

chide fricken (fried chicken)

chork pops (pork chops)

frest bend (best friend)

plaster man (master plan)

praiser linter (laser printer)

sark dide (dark side)

tapter chest (chapter test)

tars and crucks (cars and trucks)

treach bip (beach trip)

welling spruds (spelling words)

dold-gigger (gold-digger)

low blows (blow nose)

Some longer ones :

bot hog duns (hot dog buns)  

chewing the doors (doing the chores )  

cake the tase (take the case )

cogs and dats (cats and dogs )  

do on a gate (go on a date)  

hails of bay (bails of hay)

heart before the course (cart before the horse)

ravel the twirled (travel the world)

reamed so seal (seemed so real )  

sod rest her goul (God rest her soul)

sothers and bristers (brothers and sisters)

track of all jades (jack of all trades )

Books:

Ate Grexpectations (Great Expectations)

Ford of the Lies (Lord of the Flies )

Shilliam Wakespeare (William Shakespeare)  

The Bree Thayers (Th Three Bears)  

Twark Main (Mark Twain)

Have a weat greekend making some spoonerisms of your own even though Spooner’s day is observed on July 22!

                                                                               -Anupama S Mani