Re: spoonerism

[Steven Boozer <sboozer@midway.uchicago.edu>]

: >The word for spoon is {baghneQ}. That's a spoonerism for "flat 
: >rock", which would be {nagh beQ}.
: 
: What's a spoonerism? Twisting letters?
: 
: muHwI'

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary online:

	spoo.ner.ism n [William A. Spooner d. 1930 Eng. clergyman &
	educator] (1900): a transposition of usu. initial sounds of
	two or more words (as in tons of soil for sons of toil) 

The Britannica Online defines it as the

	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" (for "a crushing blow"). The word was 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
	sometimes made intentionally to produce comic effect. 


Voragh