I have! I used to hiss my mystery class often, especially when trying to talk as fast as my thoughts, resulting in Spoonerism. These days, I’ve slowed down a lot, and I don’t hiss my mystery lectures when I want to miss my history lectures.
A spoonerism is a linguistic phenomenon where the initial consonants or sounds of two or more words are swapped. This results in a humorous or nonsensical phrase. This phenomenon is named after Reverend William Archibald Spooner, an Anglican clergyman and scholar noted for frequently mixing up sounds in his speech.
Shel Silverstein popularised this phenomenon through his book ‘Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook,’ with the title itself containing two instances of Spoonerisms. The content is filled with playful instances of this phenomenon in rhyming verse.
Try decoding this excerpt from the book:
Runny fad a hamily
A sother and two bristers,
A dummy and a mad.
His mama fed him marrot cilk
A parrot cie and such
...What a playful way to get children interested in reading and enjoying the magic of words!
Spoonerism in movies
However, the topic is not complete without mentioning an instance of Spoonerism in Tamil cinema, through Crazy Mohan’s dialogue enacted by Kamal Haasan in Panchanthanthiram. As Ram is urged by his friends to meet and hug his estranged wife, he wonders what would happen if she spit on his face. But instead of saying ‘moonjiyile thuppittaana?’ (மூஞ்சியிலெ துப்பிட்டானா?), he delivers the dialogue with interchanged parts as ‘thuppiyile moojittaaana?’ (துப்பியிலெ மூஞ்சிட்டானா?)
I am not sure what happened behind the scenes and who came up with the line, as I understand that many lines in the movie were spontaneous improvisations by the actors known for their acute sense of humour. However, as I’ve mentioned before , ‘panchathanthiram’ is a master class in linguistic concepts, one of which is Spoonerism.
If Crazy Mohan was a linguist at heart, N.S. Krishnan was too. In the 1948 film Chandralekha, he asks a child to smile by saying ‘chilandhe, kuri’ (சிழந்தே, குரி) instead of ‘kuzhandhe, siri’ (குழந்தே, சிரி) to disguise that he is a tamil speaker. Within a few seconds, he follows it with an instruction to sit: ‘uraiyile thakkaaru’ (உரையிலே தக்காரு) instead of ‘tharaiyile ukkaaru’ (தரையிலே உக்காரு) 🤣
What a Genius! There are more such usages in the movie. Share if you find them!
Here is the decoded version of the excerpt from Runny Babbit.
Runny had a family
A brother and two sisters,
A mummy and a dad.
His mama fed him carrot milk
A carrot pie and such
...Have you found Spoonerisms in your languages and literature? I’d be thrilled to know of them. Please share them in the comments!
Photo Courtesy: “Runny Babbit p. 82 Final Attempt on Vimeo” by Laura B. Dahl is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
