“SPOONERISMS.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8338, 25 January 1913, Page 12

“SPOONERISMS.”

The marriage took place the other day of Miss Spooner daughter of the celebrated Oxford don who haa given his

name to those peculiar slips of the tongue known as "Spoonerisms." As an illustration. Dr Spooner on one occasion requested an astonished porter at Paddington station to put his "two bugs and a rag in the town drain"; meaning, of course, his "two bags and a rug in the down train." On another occasion a friend asked him why ho did not got his groceries at So-and-so's. “Oh," said Dr Gpooner, "I prefer to steal at the doors" (deal at the stores). In the pulpit Dr Spooner has created many surprises. "Dear brethren," ho once said, "you all know wha it is to have a halfwarmed fish in your bosoms"; and he startled his congregation by informing them that they had a shoving leopard (loving shepherd) in their midst. * Describing to an old lady bow ho had seen a cat fall from a high wall, but

escape without injury, he said, '/Imagine my surprise when it popped on its drawers and ran away," Dr Spooner is very short-sighted. Once, when walking in the "High" at Oxford, he collided with a map on "ftho pavement. "The man," said Dr Spooner, "had stopped to boil his icicle," On another occasion ho called at a watchmaker's shop. "Have you such a thing as a signifying glass?" "Well, no, I'm afraid not," said the puzzled shopkeeper. "Uh, well, it doesn't magnify," replied the Doctor. Sometimes the mistake was a '’slip of the ear" rather than a "slip of the tongue," as when, at a dinner party, in reply to a young lady's inquiry as to whether he Uked bananas, he said, "No, I prefer the ordinary sort of nightshirt." (But this story is /perhaps apocryphal.) Paying a visit to Dulwich, and feeling ready for lunch, Dr Spooner inquired his way to “The ‘Dull Man' at Greenwich/' meaning “The 'Green Mna' at Dulwich.” Perhaps it wtas on has return that he asked a' ’bus conductor for “change of a pea-shilling toooo” (two-shilling piece). It is related of him that one day, whan ho was lecturing to a class of lady students, ho became annoyed at the yawning and lack of attention with which his remarks on a somewhat dry subject were received. At last he said, "1 feel obliged to being ray lecture to a premature close, for I perceive I am addressing beery wenches’’ (weary benches). Mr Spooner has a clerical imitator who, announcing the offertory in church said. "The collection this morning will bo for the dem and duff No, no! I mean the duff and dem” (deaf and dumb). He eclipsed this fiat, however, in his sermon, when he stated that St. Stephen was ‘'stewed by the unbelieving Jones” (fetoned by the unbelieving Jews).— “Modern Society."