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Spoonerism

spoonerism · word · validated

A text built on the exchange of initial sounds between two words, so that the swap produces a second, usually comic, reading.

Provenance

  • Source: Named for William Archibald Spooner; documented from the 1890s
  • Attribution: reference — attested in a standard reference rather than traced to an origin
  • Checkability: self — decidable from the text and its parameters alone
  • Attested: codified — formulated as a rule by a tradition rather than declared by an author

Details

  • Kind: both
  • Languages: en
  • Requires: tokens, alphabet, phonemes
  • Deterministic: yes
  • In other languages: Schüttelreim (de), Contrepèterie (fr)

Notes

fold_diacritics is removed: _check compares phoneme onsets via pack.phonemes, never diacritic-folds a letter, and apply's own _letter_onset splits on pack.vowels() membership directly, not on a folded form. The onset comparison already lives entirely in phonemes, where accents do not apply.

Prompt hint

Exchange the opening sounds of two words so that both results are words.

Examples

cat-dog-distinct-onsets

en — this text satisfies the procedure.

cat dog

Source: constructed example; cat (onset K) and dog (onset D) exchange cleanly

cat-cap-same-onset

en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.

cat cap

Source: constructed counterexample; cat and cap both carry the onset K

verschiedene-anlaute

de — this text satisfies the procedure.

Katze Blume

Source: constructed example; Katze (onset K) and Blume (onset B) exchange cleanly

gleiche-anlaute

de — this text does not satisfy the procedure.

Katze Kanne

Source: constructed counterexample; Katze and Kanne both carry the onset K

attaques-distinctes

fr — this text satisfies the procedure.

chat loup

Source: constructed example; chat (onset ʃ) and loup (onset l) exchange cleanly

meme-attaque

fr — this text does not satisfy the procedure.

chat chose

Source: constructed counterexample; chat and chose both carry the onset ʃ

spoonerism-kinquering-congs

en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.

Kinquering Congs their titles take

Source: 'Kinquering Congs their titles take' (attrib. W. A. Spooner, 1879); earliest print recollection I found is Lancashire Daily Post, 1 September 1930 (Robert Seton). The term 'spoonerism' is attested earlier: OED's earliest evidence 1891 (Western Morning News, Plymouth, 25 May 1891); The Times used it in 1921. Rejected: unresolved_phonemes. Neither Kinquering nor Congs is in the pronouncing dictionary, so the onset exchange cannot be read; the row declines rather than guessing.