ż “Let us glaze our rasses to the queer old dean” instead of “Let
us raise our glasses to the dear old queen.”ż ³,VWKHEHDQGL]]\" ́LQVWHDGRI³,VWKHGHDQEXV\" ́ż “He was killed by a blushing crow” instead of “He was killed
by a crushing blow.”z We all have these slips of the tongue from time to time, but as
David Crystal notes in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language,
the interesting thing about spoonerisms is that they are predictable,
not random.
ż For example, one predictable pattern of spoonerisms is that the
two words that contain the slip of the tongue, such as blushing
crow for crushing blow, are usually found within the same
syntactic or rhythm unit—often right next to each other. Thus,
we’re more likely to swap sounds in two words that are in the
same phrase, not words found far apart.ż In this way, spoonerisms give us some insight into how our
minds plan out our speech. We plan our speech in phrasal units,
and these phrases correspond to units of thought.ż When we try to pronounce the spoken words that represent
these units of thought, we sometimes put them down in the
wrong places, mixing up words and sounds within the words.Homophone (noun)
One of two or more words that sound the same but are spelled differently
and have different meanings.z The Greek root homo in homophone means “same,” and the root
phon means “sound,” as in phonics or telephone. Thus, homophones
are “same-sounding” words.