Spoonerism
- “what is a spoonerism”
- “did spooner actually say those”
- “famous spoonerisms”
- “spoonerism examples”
:: COMPARE ::
SpoonerismvsMalapropism
The short answer
A spoonerism swaps sounds between words — the vocabulary is correct and the phonology is scrambled. A malapropism swaps a whole word for a similar-sounding wrong one — the phonology is fine and the vocabulary is wrong. Phonology versus lexicon.
Side by side
| Aspect | Spoonerism | Malapropism |
|---|---|---|
| What's wrong | Sound order | Word choice |
| Speaker knows the word | Yes | No |
| Result | Two new words | One wrong word |
| Named after | A real person | A fictional one |
Which one you meant
Readers who land here meaning Spoonerism rather than Malapropism are usually searching for phrases like “what is a spoonerism”, “did spooner actually say those”, “famous spoonerisms”.
Malapropism
- “what is a malapropism”
- “malapropism examples”
- “who was mrs malaprop”
- “malapropism vs mondegreen”
Which came first
Malapropism. around 1598–99 — Shakespeare's Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing does the same thing roughly 180 years earlier, which is why 'Dogberryism' exists as an alternative name.
- around 1598–99MalapropismShakespeare's Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing does the same thing roughly 180 years earlier, which is why 'Dogberryism' exists as an alternative name.
- 1879SpoonerismThe date a former student, Robert Seton, gave for 'The Kinquering Congs Their Titles Take', announced from a pulpit — the line Spooner himself claimed was his only spoonerism.
Read either one in full