A
Wirdbalk
This week it’s time for a
birdwalk - a little wordplay – the spoonerism.
Spoonerisms are named after the Reverend William A. Spooner,
who suffered from a speech disorder involving involuntary transposition of
sounds in words, typically initial sounds. Though historians question the
authenticity of many gaffes attributed to Reverend Spooner, lists of his gaffes
typically include this bungled tribute to Queen Victoria, “Three cheers for our queer old dean!”
In tribute to
Reverend Spooner, those who enjoy playing with language have mercilessly
tweaked any number of perfectly fine stories, many of which can be found on
Matthew Goldman’s Goonerisms Spalore,
the most well known being the many versions of Indercella (in which our unhortunate
feroine attends a bancy fall and slops her dripper).
For something a bit
different, here’s Goldman’s take on the climax and denouement of another
old fairy tale:
“May I come in, and hee your sitty prome?"
"Tho, Tho, a nousand times, Tho, " pied the
crig, "Not by the chair of my hinny hin, hin!"
"Then I'll huff, and I'll duff, and I'll hoe
your blouse down," growled the wolf.
And with that, the wolf chuffed up his peeks, blew
the smith to housereens, and sat down to a dine finner of roast sau and
pigerkraut.
If you haven’t indulged
yourself in this manner before, take the hull by the borns & spoonerize the
following list of random well-known names:
William Shakespeare
Judy Garland
Benjamin Franklin
Margaret Thatcher
Marie Curie
Groucho Marx
Benito Mussolini
Virginia Woolf
Thanks for putting up with
this week’s wirdbalk. Please comment with any favorite spoonerized names, or a
spoonerization of your own name.