Spoonerism

A spoonerism is a slip or a joke in which the opening sounds of two words trade places, so that 'a pack of lies' becomes 'a lack of pies'.

Say "a pack of lies" and swap the opening sounds of "pack" and "lies". You get "a lack of pies". The words are real, the grammar holds, and the sense has gone sideways. That is a spoonerism.

How it works

The speaker takes two nearby words, usually adjacent, and exchanges their first sounds. What counts is sound, not spelling.

• "Our queer old dean" for "our dear old queen".
• "Is the bean dizzy?" for "Is the dean busy?"
• "You have tasted two worms" for "You have wasted two terms".

The name comes from the Reverend William Spooner of Oxford, who was famous for slips of this kind, though the best-known stories are probably invented by students.

Spoonerism as a tool

Comedians use spoonerisms for quick, silly laughs. Puzzle setters use them as clues and riddles, where a solver must swap the sounds back. Writers of children's books use them for sound play.

Why it matters to a writer or editor

A spoonerism is an unintended hazard in any text that will be read aloud. Speeches, scripts and voice-over copy should be checked for phrases that are easy to trip on. Read the text aloud, and rewrite any phrase where two initial sounds sit close together and could swap. It also helps to know the family: the malapropism swaps a word for a similar one, and the tongue-twister is built to cause this slip on purpose. A pun plays on meaning, where a spoonerism plays on sound.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Spooner?

The Reverend William Archibald Spooner, a warden of New College, Oxford, who was said to make such slips in speech. Many of the stories told about him are probably invented.

Is a spoonerism always an accident?

The original ones were slips of the tongue. Today most are deliberate, used as jokes, riddles and wordplay in comedy and puzzles.

What is a famous spoonerism?

'You have hissed all my mystery lectures' for 'You have missed all my history lectures' is the one most often credited to Spooner himself.