“SPOONERISMS”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 109, 8 April 1936, Page 2

“SPOONERISMS”

AND UNCONSCIOUS HUMOUR

The death a short time ago of Rev. W. A. Spooner, a Church of England minister and Oxford notability, was signalised by the newspaper Press pointing out that from Ins name, and a certain slip of the tongue once made by him, had originated the term “spoonerisms,” writes J. G. It., in S.A. Bankin" Magazine. He is alleged to have said, in announcing the hymn to be sung, “Conquering kings their trifles take” to have rendered it as “Kinkering lrongs.” Many other such amusing lapses were attributed to him, though they were really foisted upon him by clever Oxford undergraduates; as, for example, “1 am, tired of addressing beery wenches,” “I went from London to Oxford by the town drain,” and “Those persons, occupewing the pies,” etc. He is also credited with having said, among other amusing things, that a’cat “popped on its drawers,” and that each of his congregation had '‘some half-warmed fish in his heart,” intending, probably, to say “half-formed wish.” On a par with this is the instruction of an excited traveller at a railway station: “Porter, get my rags and bugs I” There is no doubt that clergymen addressing their congregation, and public speakers on the platform, are very apt to utter “spoonerisms” or get their words twisted. A clergyman, in preaching a sermon on the Miracle of the Loaves and Pishes, the Gospel of the day, kept constantly referring to five littie loaves and two barley fishes. Another, preaching at a- crowded Christmas service on tlio Nativity, apparently could not remember the term “swaddling-clothes” and, to the moro or less suppressed amusement of his listeners, repeatedly alluded to the Infant being wrapped in “little rags.” A butler who was offering a duke some grouse at dinner asked, “Grace, your grouse?” And there is the story, also, of the bishop who, expecting a visit from a brother dignitary, instructed his new servant to announce him as “The bishop, my lord.” The servant, however, found the occasion too much for his sense of decorum and announced the visitor as “The Lord, my bishop!” Unconscious humour like this is always highly diverting and what are called “bulls” or “Irish bulls enter into the category, though many famous Irish politicians, like the famous Sir Boyle Roche, perpetrated intentional “bulls” simply to raise a laugh. Then there were the celebrated “Three Tailors of Tooley Street,” who wrote an indignant letter to the press, beginning, “We, the people of England, and signing it “Three Tailors of Tooley Street.” An insignificant little provincial newspaper in Ireland, the —- Eagle in its leading article once said, “Let’the Government beware! llie Eagle has an eye upon their doings” ; and who has not heard the often-quoted remark, “I shall, put down my foot with a heavy hand . A charwoman was once explaining that her father’s name was Caleb. “It s out of the Bible, and my brother was named arter ’im,” she “Arterim!” asked her mistress s little girl. “Is that out of the Bible too.-'