spoonerism

See also: Spoonerism

English

WOTD – 20 June 2006

From Spooner +‎ -ism, named after Oxford don Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844–1930), who is supposed to have habitually made such slip-ups.

Examples
“The queer old dean” (for “the dear old Queen”) Reports of a shortage of snacks at the spoonerism conference turned out to be a complete lack of pies.

spoonerism (plural spoonerisms)

A play on words on a phrase in which the initial (usually consonantal) sounds of two or more of the main words are transposed.
Synonym: marrowsky
- 2007, Michael Erard, Um…: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean‎^[1], page 16:
  Undergraduates at Oxford University were playfully fond of Spooner, whom they nicknamed "the Spoo". They also coined the term "spoonerism" around 1885, after Spooner had been a fellow at New College for almost twenty years. By 1892, his reputation for absentmindedness was well known; students came to New College expecting to hear a spoonerism.

phrase where sounds are transposed