Spoonerism

Spoonerism (plural Spoonerisms)

1. Alternative letter-case form of spoonerism.
   • 1919, Jessie Pope, “Spoonerisms”, in Pearson’s Magazine, volume XLVIII, page 535, column 1:

     A Spoonerism may sometimes alter the whole tenor of a person’s career. An extremely bashful man was asked to find the elderly daughter of the house, who was in the garden, and ask her to make tea. “Miss Florence,” he said, when he discovered her in the rosery, “I have come to ask if you will take me?” And she did!

   • 1976 July, Oxford Diocesan Magazine, page 15, column 1; quoted in “spoonerism”, in R W Burchfield, editor, A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, volumes IV (Se–Z), Oxford, Oxon: At the Clarendon Press, 1986, page 434, column 3:

     I am not going to put on any weight until I’m fifty, when I shall allow myself to become matronly, ready to be a follower of ‘soda and gobbly matrons’, as enjoined by the marriage service. (A good Spoonerism that, created quite involuntarily by my mother some years ago.)

   • 1978, Gore Vidal, Kalki, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, page 30:

     Dr. Ashok suffered from a mild form of metaphasis. He made Spoonerisms.

   • 2011, Ann Treneman, “MI5 was watching Katia? So were many male MPs”, in Dave and Nick: The Year of the Honeymoon…and Beyond, London: The Robson Press, Biteback Publishing Ltd, →ISBN:

     I tried to concentrate on this very tiny but very fascinating scandal-ette involving a leggy blonde Russian researcher, but Jude Law – and Spoonerisms – kept distracting me […] Now Nick Herbert had just been asked about cuts to front line policing. ‘I don’t accept that those are c****,’ he said, immediately correcting himself.

   • 2013, Chip Chapman, “Nicknames”, in Notes from a Small Military, London: John Blake, →ISBN, page 119:

     An attached cavalry officer was called Captain Lunt. McCord employed his best Spoonerism to rename him ‘Laptain’.