When trying to describe the setup that family pony long enjoyed as part of a herd of horses having free rein over most of a Cotswold valley, the words that emerged from my mouth referred instead to a hoarde of hearses...This may have been a heavy week for funerals, but still!
(btw, does anyone know if there's a name for that sort of "semi spoonerism" that happens when you switch the vowels in a pair of words, rather than the initial consonant? If not, any ideas??)
Middle age, I fear.
ReplyDeleteCould have been worse, could have been a horde of heresies.
ReplyDeleteI do it all the time - my excuse is that my brain works quicker than my mouth. The other day I meant to say 'chair spinning' and said 'spare chinning' instead.
ReplyDeleteIt's just a Freudian slip, isn't it? Maybe you were subconsciously thinking about funerals at the time.
ReplyDeleteIt's still a spoonerism if it's vowels instead of consonants! One of Rev Spooner's apocryphal mistakes was: 'It is kisstomary to cuss the bride', which is a vowel-switch.
ReplyDeleteI guess yours was a Freudian slip too as you'd done a lot of funerals but it's still a spoonerism as well.
Thanks, Sue...I've wondered that for such a long time. I love the idea of cussing the bride - specially having once accused a couple of youngsters I knew of "cussing and kiddling" all over the place!
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