A lifetime of misplaced words
A lifetime of misplaced words
The woman had scarcely seated herself in the chapel when a short man with a large head and blinking eyes said, “Pardon, madam, this pie is occupewed. May I sew you to another sheet?”
She had just met William Archibald Spooner and heard one of the verbal slips for which he was known. He became so identified with that type of oral stumble that they were called “Spoonerisms.”
Spooner was born on July 22, 1844 and was a strange-looking child. He was an albino with poor eyesight, and a head disproportionate to his body. But his parents soon learned that he was exceptionally bright.
Spooner won a scholarship to New College, Oxford University when he was 18, thereby starting a 60-year association with it. He became a fellow of the college, then a dean, and finally, warden (president).
Of a secretary, he once inquired, “Is the bean dizzy?” when he meant, “Is the dean busy?”
His nimble brain often jumped ahead of his tongue, a condition the Greeks called metathesis.
Thus we have him describing a tragedy as “a blushing crow” when he meant crushing blow. He referred to a group of farmers as “tons of soil” rather than sons of toil, and at a navy review commented on the “cattle ships and bruisers” when battleships and cruisers was intended.
Spooner could be stern if the situation warranted. He summoned a student whose grades and conduct were atrocious and scolded, “You have hissed my mystery talks, were seen fighting a liar in the quad, and have tasted two worms. You may leave by the town drain.”
Spooner was also a bit absent-minded. He said to a man in the study room, “Please stop by my place tonight. We’re having a welcoming party for the new fellow of archaeology.” The man replied that he was the new fellow, and Spooner said, “Well, come all the same.”
Upon his death a month after his 86th birthday, his seven children mourned him as did the faculty and student body. He was regarded as one if the best teachers in England, and the University and the town knew they had lost a dear friend.
May he pest in reace.
