spoonerism
noun/ˈspuː.nəɹˌɪ.zəm/
Etymology From Spooner + -ism, named after Oxford don Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), who is supposed to have habitually made such slip-ups.
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Rhetoric A play on words on a phrase in which the initial (usually consonantal) sounds of two or more of the main words are transposed.
- Undergraduates at Oxford University were playfully fond of Spooner, whom they nicknamed "the Spoo". They also coined the term "spoonerism" around 1885, after Spooner had been a fellow at New College for almost twenty years. By 1892, his reputation for absentmindedness was well known; students came to New College expecting to hear a spoonerism.2007, Michael Erard, Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean, page 16:
- Related terms
- spooneristic, spooneristically