Cute! Are we talking about eating with a spoon or ‘spooning by the moon’? Or something else?
Hi Jaycee. Thanks for sharing your stories with us.
What are Spoonerisms?
Spoonerisms are phrases, sentences, or words in language with swapped sounds. Usually this happens by accident, particularly if you’re speaking fast. Come and wook out of the lindow is an example.
There are many millions of possible Spoonerisms, but those which are of most interest (mainly for their amusement value) are the ones in which the Spoonerism makes sense as well as the original phrase. Go and shake a tower and a well-boiled icicle illustrate this well (go and take a shower, a well-oiled bicycle).
Since Spoonerisms are phonetic transpositions, it is not so much the letters which are swapped as the sounds themselves. Transposing initial consonants in the speed of light gives the leed of spight which is clearly meaningless when written, but phonetically it becomes the lead of spite.
Generally Spoonerisms which are produced accidentally are transpositions between words that resemble one another phonetically, such as cuss and kiddle and slow and sneet (kiss and cuddle, snow and sleet).
The name Spoonerism comes from the Reverend William Archibald Spooner who is reputed to have been particularly prone to making this type of verbal slip.