FOR THE GIRLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOR THE GIRLS.

REVIVAL OF SPOONERISMS.

PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

My Dear Girls, —

I expect many of you have heard of Dr. Spooner, the famous Oxford Don, who is famed for " putting the cart before the horse," thereby adding a blithe new word to the English language and causing a thousand, thousand more laughs in the world.

A "Spoonerism" is formed by transposition of letters, initials, or otherwise, and the good doctor's famous " kinquering congs their tatles tike " is a well-known example. We are told there were Spoonerisms long before Spooner, and these oddities of speech "no doubt amused the Pharaohs, and possibly provoked loud laughter in the torch-lit caverns of primitive man," but in our age and day the glory all belongs to jovial old Dr. Spooner, and, rightly or wrongly, the choicest and funniest are attributed to him.

Who could have resisted a laugh upon being told by the doctor, "he delighted to ride a well boiled icicle," and always when he travelled in a train he never forgot to carry his " two bugs and a rag," and at the < refreshment station frequently partook of a " bath of milk and a glass bun."

When visiting a friend in the country who had bought a charming cottage there, he congratulated him heartily upon the ' nosey little cook." When he went to call upon the Dean of Christchurch he greeted the servant with the remark "Is the bean dizzy ? " When asked where he intended spending his long vacation he replied " rambling on the scalps."

In Queen Victoria's time he was addressing a political meeting, at the conclusion of which he earnestly requested the audience to give " three cheers for the queer old dean." Once, when searching the aisle of the church very carefully, upon the verger inquiring what was amiss, the doctor answered he was " looking for a little glutton dropped from above." (This may need translating—a little-button dropped from a glove.) It was Dr. Spooner who asked his congregation to sing with him, " From Iceland's Greasy Mountains," and later on electrified them by informing them " He praised God they were no longer running with the middy gultitude." In our everyday life the " Spoonerism " occurs. There is a wartime story of a speaker who ascribed the safe transport of our troops to France to the vigilance of the Flannel Sheet." When I was at school, we girls used to get no end of fun out of inventing Spoonerisms, and quite recently an English paper revived interest in'these amusing absurdities by inaugurating a Spoonerism competition. Dr. Spooner himself is /fjtl still alive and hearty. I cannot f \ . / « imagine a more pleasant thing than j to be the child friend of this most " 4^^

delightful Don. v Can you ?