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SPOONERISM - 2 reference results
spoonerism

Reversal of the initial letters or syllables of two or more words, such as “I have a half-warmed fish in my mind” (for “half-formed wish”) and “a blushing crow” (“a crushing blow”). The word is derived from the name of William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), a distinguished Anglican clergyman and warden of New College, Oxford, a nervous man who committed many “spoonerisms.” Such transpositions are often made intentionally for comic effect.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Spoonerism as literary device in Desnos, Leiris, and Robaud.(Robert Desnos, Michel Leiris, Jacques Robaud)
Mar 01, 1996; While it is usually considered a trivial slip of the tongue, the lowly spoonerism nonetheless has its place in contemporary...
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SPOONERISM
Jan 01, 1998; SPOONERISM. [From the name of the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), Dean and Warden of New College, Oxford]. The...
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spoonerism
Jan 01, 1997; spoonerism The Reverend William A. Spooner (1844–1930), an Anglican clergyman, had a habit of transposing the initial...
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Spoonerism
Jan 01, 2004; Spoonerism, a phrase in which the initial consonants of two words have been swapped over, creating an amusing new expression. It...
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Sounding of the pun: the official spoonerism game.
Feb 01, 2004; In my semi-definitive but now tragically out-of-print spoonerism book Cruel and Unusual Puns, I spoke somewhat disparagingly of a...
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