Study Break:

Spaying Soonerisms - The English Language as Reverend Newner Spew it.

Reverend William A. Spooner (1844-1930) taught at New College, Oxford, England. A speech impediment and poor eyesight frequently caused him to transpose sounds in sentences he was saying. In addition, his career as a teacher and preacher provided ample opportunities and witnesses. It is little wonder, then, as Webster's New World Dictionary puts it, "an unintentional interchange of sounds, usually initial sounds, in two or more words," is today called a spoonerism. Out of the lips of Reverend Spooner "our dear old queen" became "our queer old dean" and "a well-oiled bicycle" was "a well-boiled icicle. " Written below are spoonerisms said by Spooner himself. See if you can figure out what Reverend Spooner meant to say.

a. "Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and have been caught fighting a liar in the quad, you will leave Oxford by the town drain!" (Said by Spooner as he was expelling a student missing classes and lighting a fire.)

b. "Work is the curse of the drinking classes. "

c. "It is kisstomery to cuss the bride." (Said to a forgetful groom at a wedding.)

d. "The Lord is a shoving leopard."

e. "the Assissination of Sassero" (The announced title for a Roman History lecture.)

f. "Is the bean dizzy?"

g. "one swell foop"

h. "The cat popped on its drawers."

i. "blushing crow" (You may have been dealt one of these.)

j. "When the boys come home from France, we'll have the hags flung out." (Reverend Spooner's conception of what the end of World War I would be like.)

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