Shashi Tharoor on spoonerisms

Dubai - Shashi Tharoor's World of Words is a weekly column in which the politician, diplomat, writer and wordsmith par excellence dissects words and language

You may all be forgiven for missing this momentous occasion, since I nearly did too, but yesterday, the 22nd of July, was the 177th birth anniversary of the Oxford don and ordained minister Rev. William Archibald Spooner, who unwittingly gave his name to the most delightful of English language errors, known for a century and a quarter as Spoonerisms.

Rev. Spooner was famously absent-minded and tended, in his abstracted way, to switch unintentionally the vowels or consonants in two words in close proximity. Thus, intending to say that “The rate of wages will press hard upon the employer”, the Reverend declared in a lecture that “The weight of rages will press hard upon the employer”. As a preacher, he referred to “conquering kings” (a phrase from a well-known hymn) as “Kingering Kongs”. These two are, in fact, the only substantiated examples authenticated as having been actually uttered by him, but his reputation for switching word-beginnings, a notoriety enhanced by mischievous Oxford undergraduates who attended his lectures and sermons, spawned an entire cottage industry of invented Spoonerisms.

Far from being unintentional mix-ups by an abstracted professor, these were created entirely intentionally, for humorous purposes. The most famous, because it was both plausible and hilariously funny, was that in a toast to Queen Victoria, Rev. Spooner — instead of raising his glass with the words “Three cheers for our dear old queen!” — invited those present to give “Three cheers for our queer old dean!”

Another example has this man of religion, intending to intone “The Lord is a loving shepherd,” instead saying “The Lord is a shoving leopard”. And wanting to ask a couple at a wedding if it was “customary to kiss” the bride, Spooner is supposed to have said, “Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?” In these stories, Spooner renders a “crushing blow” as a “blushing crow”, calls a well-oiled bicycle a “well-boiled icicle” and describes a “cosy little nook” as a “nosey little cook.”

But, in fact, most of the famous Spoonerisms are apocryphal and cannot be convincingly attributed to him. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (3rd edition, 1979) lists only the “weight of rages” as a substantiated Spoonerism. Most of us have uttered a Spoonerism unwittingly at some time — an error prompted by haste, carelessness or fatigue. Only his are classics.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com