Spoonerism

Slips of the tongue, not so much as so called 'Freudian slips', but mixing up primary characters from words and interlacing them into a confusing sentences. Or, by switching corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes between two words in a phrase.

Spoonerism was named after William Archibald Spooner, who was a Dean at New College Oxford, and was famous for his slips of the tongue; often to humorous effects.

Examples from the great chappy Spooner himself:

fighting a liar - lighting a fire

you hissed my mystery lecture - you missed my history lecture

cattle ships and bruisers - battle ships and cruisers

nosey little cook - cosy little nook

a blushing crow - a crushing blow

tons of soil - sons of toil

our queer old Dean - our dear old Queen

we'll have the hags flung out - we'll have the flags hung out

you've tasted two worms - you've wasted two terms

a half-warmed fish - a half-formed wish

is the bean dizzy? - is the Dean busy?

Everyone seems to produce such slips of the tongue. Sigmund Freud was aware of this fact and in 1901 based his monograph, Psychopathology of everyday life, on such errors claiming that slips of the tongue resulted from repressed thoughts which are revealed by the particular errors which a speaker makes. While it is possible that Freud is correct in some cases, such errors reveal as much if not much more about the structure of language as they do about repressed thoughts.

Linguists have collected and analysed slips of the tongue at least as far back as the 8th century when the Arab linguist Al-Ki-sa-i wrote his book, Errors of the populace. The Arab scholar's interest in such errors was based on the belief that they might provide clues as to how language changes. Since that time, many linguists have been collecting and analysing these spontaneously produced speech errors. While slips of the tongue have not contributed much to our understanding of how and why languages change, they do tell us a great deal about what we seem to know about our language and how we use this knowledge to speak and to understand what others say to us.

It is said that Spoonerisms come from a mind too fast for the tongue, though i suspect it really comes down to the composition of sentences. Sentences are just components of a greater meaning - they are the necessary ingredients to convey soup of information, without a word here or there, or the wrong one, the information becomes confusing, as the message then gets lost under the goop of taste - not enough salt, too much pepper etc... I mean, I've had my fair share of trying to extrapolate meaning from students unable to use even the most simple aspects of grammar, but it can be done, though it's difficult to pay attention to the message when the words are in the wrong places. It's like hearing an orchestra - it is all fine and well when the band is playing fine and well, but as soon as a duff note comes up - that's all you hear. So, i suppose, that's what makes slips of the tongue become the focus of attention - though need they be?

I'm not even sure slips of the tongue happen as a result of not paying due attention - like a waiter carrying a tray of glasses will inevitably have an accident regardless of attention. The more something is carried about, the more chances are made for Murphy's Law to come into affect. Personally, even if you do pay attention, it is not always on the right things - the words can still get all mangled and split and end up somewhere, but not entirely where you wanted them to be. I kind of view it as a barrier system in the mouth, whereby the words are bustling around the start line, crashing into each-other on the way out. Sentences aren't always how you want them to be, and at times even basic words can't be found, so deviations around those 'gaps' need to be made so that you can at least finish the sentence, no matter how much the mouth demons don't want you to. Practice of course makes perfect, or it would, if there was such a thing.

The best you can do is to try and focus instead on the spout of the word production, but on the substance put in – if your attention is on the product, you cease to think on the contents – meaning that your comment is based on observation and not participation even when you are speaking. I don't know about you, but this is a frequent affair for me, an introspective self study of conscious awareness. How to redirect attention I wonder? Well, here are some tips:

1. Pretend you are a butterfly and the conversation a juicy flower, meaning, continued participation will lead to more nectar from the flower and therefore a fuller stomach.

2. Do Star-jumps when speaking – this will distract you and the other person from what you're saying.

3. Pretend to have a heart attack and fall to the floor clutching yourself while murmuring conspiracy theories.

4. Throw as much food as you can see into your mouth and spray it whilst speaking at the other person.

5. Run out the room screaming something about a ghost being in your trousers.

6. Press your thumbs against your temples and press whilst clenching your teeth and crouching down; until you get dizzy and get distracted by some fluff on the floor.

I hope these work for you, they certainly work for me. These tips will help the insignificant problems of such slips of the tongue fade away – as it has to be said, they really aren't important. They are only a problem when you enable them in your mind to become problems. Most of the time, the key I suppose, is to identify spoonerisms as inevitable in a world where language is used to fill every silence. It is not always a fair assumption that there is something wrong with you; only your attention to the wrong things. As you can see, I sort of lost interest in this article – not sure why, but there you go. Some days present a certain reluctance to established norms.

Not that anyone reads these anyway...