Information AboutSpoonerism |
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Other gaffes worth mentioning are his angry speech 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," actually intending to say "missed history", "lighting fire", "wasted terms", and "down train", respectively. During a college reception, he remarked to one lady "You'll soon be had, as a matter of course", when he meant to say "Mad as a Hatter, of course". A few more which you can probably work out for yourself include (making a toast) "Let us glaze our asses to the queer old Dean", "We'll have the hags flung out", "a half-warmed fish" and "Is the bean dizzy?" Spooner is also recorded by Littlewood as having proposed a toast to "The Boar's Head" (a Pub ), but this was emphatically not a spoonerism. It should be pointed out that many of the quotes attributed to Spooner are apocryphal - The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (3rd edition, 1979) only lists one substantiated Spoonerism - "The weight of rages will press hard upon the employer" In modern terms, spoonerism is any changing of sounds in this manner. While simple enough to do, a clever spoonerism is one that results in a funny phrase or sentence. "Flutterby" is an oft-cited example of a spoonerism that has not lost its original meaning. When dealing with letters that correspond to produce a different sound than their separate connotations such as 'sh', 'ch', 'ph', etc... both letters are moved to preserve the original verbal sound. For example, 'Cheer for Dennis' would be 'Deer for Chennis'. Best described or illustrated to new English speakers would be the transposition of the first staccato or plosive in a word pair such as: Par Cark. EXAMPLES IN MODERN ENTERTAINMENT
SPOONERISM IN OTHER LANGUAGES Spoonerism in Dutch Spoonerisms in Dutch are made in the exact same manner as in English. For example: "''met vereende krachten''" will become "''met verkrachte eenden''" (Translated: "with joined forces" spoonerised into: "with raped ducks") Spoonerism in Finnish Spoonerisms are prolific in a few other languages. For example, the quirks of the selection of phonemes lend themselves well to this purpose. Finnish '' Sananmuunnokset '' (literal translation 'word transformations' does not capture the spoonerism hidden in the original Finnish compound) are mainly used in jokes. Before transformation a Finnish spoonerism is something innocent and after transformation something obscene. A Finnish spoonerism is usually performed by telling the innocent version and letting the listener figure out the outcome. Spoonerism in French The French ''contrepèterie'' is also facilitated by a strong Rabelaisian tradition for coarse, if witty, humour. Contrepéteurs excel in finding in seeming innocuous phrases the elements for the lewd and humorous. A famous example is the weekly column "Sur l'Album de la Comtesse" in the French weekly satirical journal '' Le Canard Enchaîné ''. - For example, ''Les nouilles cuisent au jus de canne : les couilles nuisent au cul de Jeanne'' (which translates roughly as, ''the noodles cook in juice of cane: the balls hurt the arse of Jane''). The ''s'' and ''l'' in ''jus'' and ''cul'' are silent in French. One from French comedian Coluche : ''Quand les Nippons bougent, la Chine se dresse : quand les nichons bougent, la pine se dresse'' (which translates as, ''when the Japanese move, China reacts : when the nipples move, the penis erects''). Similarly, the French word for a Tumble Dryer , ''un sèche-linge'', could give rise to a spoonerism ''un lèche-singe'' which would mean a person who licks monkeys. A French radio announcer was reputed to say, instead of ''Les populations du Cap'' (''the population of Cap-Haïtien ''): ''Les copulations du Pape.'' (''The Pope's copulations''). Spoonerism in German The German ''Schüttelreim'' ('shake rhyme') is a rhyme where the initial consonants (or even the following vowels) of the last two stressed syllables are exchanged with one another. For example, ''Es klapperte die Klapper'''schl'''ang','' — ''bis ihre Klapper '''schl'''apper '''kl'''ang.'' (by ''Heinz Erhardt'') - ''The rattlesnake rattled, until her rattles sounded flabbier.'' A popular spoonerism in German languguage derives from the German adaption of the TV-show ''saturday night live''. A series of sketches was aired which had the title ''Kentucky schreit ficken''. This spoonerism of ''Kentucky fried chicken'' means: ''Kentucky is yelling fuck''. Spoonerism in Swedish Similar jokes are told in the Swedish language, conventionally stating which one of two similar-sounding options the teller would prefer, as in: ''Bättre en back läsk i hallen än ett läskigt hack i ballen.'' meaning "Rather a crate of sodas in the hall than a horrible cut in the wang." Spoonerism in Hungarian The Hungarian ''kecskerím'' (''goat rhyme'') is a rhyming form where there are two rhyming words in each line, and in the second line, the starting letters of the rhyming words are exchanged, like "Ne ülj le a kőre, Pandúr, / Megkarmol egy pőre kandúr!" (Don't sit on the stone, Policeman, as a tom-cat will scratch you!). Another example of Hungarian spoonerism is creating word pairs like "Vali fejlesztése" (Vali's development) and "Lali fejvesztése" (Lali's beheading). Spoonerism in Danish The Danish term for spoonerism is "bakke snagvendt", which is itself a spoonerism of "snakke bagvendt" (i.e. talk backwards). The term is derived from a song by the puppet stars of the children's TV-show ''Kaj og Andrea''. The song itself contains mainly spoonerisms based on the swapping around of one or two phonemes rather than syllables or morhpemes. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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