spoonerismnoun [ C ]
uk/ˈspuː.nər.ɪ.zəm/us/ˈspuː.nɚ.ɪ.zəm/a mistake made when speaking in which the first sounds of two words are exchanged with each other to produce a not intended and usually funny meaning:
The Reverend William Spooner used to produce spoonerisms such as "a scoop of boy trouts" instead of what he meant to say - "a troop of boy scouts".
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Linguistic terms & linguistic style
- affricate
- allophone
- anaphor
- anaphora
- anaphoric
- double entendre
- ellipsis
- idiomatic
- irregular
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- litotes
- neurolinguistics
- oxymoron
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- philology
- portmanteau word
- semiotics
- tone language
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