Spoonerisms, Knorks, and Fives

Image by ha11ok from PixabayNah! Spoonerisms have nothing to do with knorks and fives — or forks and knives. A spoonerism  is a verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, often to humorous effect, for example, ” You have hissed the mystery lesson,” accidentally said instead of what was intended:  “You have missed the history lesson.” Here are a few more:Bunny phone instead of funny boneBelly jeans instead of jelly beansIt is kisstomery to cuss the bridebad salad instead of sad ballad What is the origin of the word spoonerism? William Archibald Spooner (1844 – 1930) was a British clergyman, most notable for his absent-mindedness, and for supposedly mixing up the syllables in a spoken phrase, with unintentionally comic effect. Such phrases became known as spoonerisms, and are often used humorously.  Is spoonerism related to dyslexia? In a study of a group of university students both with and without dyslexia, it was found that participants with dyslexia underperformed their peers in all phonological measures, including spoonerisms. 

What are mondegreens, and are they related to spoonerisms? A mondegreen is the result of  hearing something incorrectly, and thinking it is correct. Often, they happen with music or poetry. We will be talking about mondegreens later this month.

What are eggcorns, and are they related to spoonerisms? Yup. It is a really funny name.  Similar to mondegreens, eggcorns occur when a common phrase is changed to another similar sounding phrase: “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes”  (pretty much the same as a malapropism).

The term egg corn (later becoming one word — eggcorn) was coined by professor of linguistics Geoffrey Pullum in 2003 in response to an article by Mark Liberman on a group blog for linguists. In his article, Liberman talked about a woman who had used the phrase egg corn for acorn, and he noted that this specific type of substitution lacked a name. Pullum suggested using egg corn itself as a label.

Children’s author Shel Silverstein’s book Runny Rabbit: A Billy Sook is a collection of kids’ poems based on spoonerisms. This one is called “The Kungle Jing”:

“Oh I am the Jing of the Kungle,”

Runny roared to one and all

When he wore his cion’s lostume

To the Walloheen bostume call.

But there he met a leal rion

Who said, “You’d best cake tare,

And do not start believin’

You’re the costume that you wear.”

  Thank you Wikipedia for some of the info.