MISTAKEN IDEA

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30278, 2 November 1963, Page 8

MISTAKEN IDEA

Spooner’s “Isms”

Recalling in a recent 8.8. C. broadcast some eccentrics he had known at Oxford, Dr. A. S. Russell, a former Oxford don, corrected the idea thait the famous Dr. Spooner, onetime warden of New College, was, in fact, responsible for the host of “spoonerisms" attributed to him.

To the best of his belief he had contributed only two to the saga: he had once said "kinkering kongs” instead of "conquering kings” when announcing a hymn, and another time "through a dark glassly” instead of “through a glass darkly,” said Dr. Russell. Dr. Spooner’s eccentricity had lain in action rather than in words.

“At a station, once, instead of saying good-bye to his wife and tipping the porter, he is said .to have kissed the porter and given a shilling to his wife,” said Dr, Russell,

“On another occasion when about to go home from a party, a deluge set in. His host asked him to stay the night. He agreed and disappeared. Twenty minutes later he reappeared at his host’s bouse drenched to the skin—he had gone home in the interval for his night things. “Meeting a young man in the quadrangle one day he pressed him to dine in college the next evening to meet a new fellow, Mr Casson. ‘But I am Mr Casson,' said the astonished young man. ‘Never mind,’ said Spooner ‘come all the same.’ ”

Charity is a virtue of the heart and not of the hands. —Joseph Addison.

Be charitable and indulgent to every one but thy self.—Joubert.