Dr Spooner Slips and Trips of the Tongue

Meet Dr. William Archibald Spooner, professor of New College of St. Mary’s, Oxford, England from 1867 to 1924. Well loved by faculty and students alike, he is famous for muddling his words in a way henceforth known as spoonerisms. He is said to have uttered “The Lord is a shoving leopard” i.e. The Lord is a loving shepherd, along with other unwittingly funny remarks.

 My own love of spoonerisms comes from having a grandmother who muddled her words to hilarious results which alternately bewildered and tickled her and her family. When she worked in downtown Houston she called a nearby department store one rainy day and asked an unsuspecting clerk, “Do you have boozle drits? I mean bizzle droots?” Of course she really was asking for the plastic shoe covers called ‘drizzle boots’ and after a little bewilderment and a few stifled giggles on the other end of the line, was able to get the correct words out in their proper sequence. My favorite was odor arm deunderant for under arm deodorant. But another funny one was while we were on a trip through rolling hills one lazy afternoon and she pointed to a nearby meadow and said to her husband, “Oh look, Sterling, shoats and geeps…I mean sheets and goaps…oh dear, sheep and goats.”

In a quest to find out if others had the same peculiar lapses I discovered Dr. Spooner and also a record of some famous or infamous spoonerisms on live radio broadcasts that were made into a blooper record. Most of these appealed to my naughty adolescent sense of humor as well as that of whoever produced the record. A few are listed below:

 Of a pianist in performance: “Mr. Playbody will now pea for you.”

 Of a shipboard arrival of an infamous royal couple: “And now ladies and gentlemen, The Duck and Douchess of Windsor!”

 Of a radio dramatization of a famous book: “We present the Charles Dickens classic – The Sale of Two Titties.”

 And on, and on, and on.

 So do you have any classic Spoonerisms? I would love to hear them. Do try to keep them as clean as possible. As noted above, they can get off-color and won’t be allowed on the blog if they veer into deep blue territory.