Reverend Spooner

William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), British cleric and scholar.

Spooner is famous for spoonerisms, which are accidentally humorous transpositions of sounds. For instance, StackSmashing and SmackStashing, or Would you like a hazel nut? and Would you like a nasal hut?.

See http://fun-with-words.com/spoonerisms.html for more examples.

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Does that page contain him scolding a student?

"You have hissed all my mystery lessons, and in fact tasted the whole worm. I must insist that you leave by the next town drain."

[Note: "town drain" via "down train", which goes from Oxford to London. In both Oxford and Cambridge one comes up to university and goes down from University. To be sent down is to be expelled. See "GOING DOWN / UP" in http://www.prosperityfg.com.html - ed]

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The only Spoonerism recorded (as opposed to merely attributed) occurred in 1879 at the New College Chapel when announcing the next hymn as: "Kinquering Congs their titles take." Quoted in The New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations by J M Cohen (1992) page 403.

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There is a story that he also spoonerized actions: when someone accidentally spilled some salt at table, the story goes that he carefully poured a little red wine on it, to give that characteristic little pile of pink salt that adds colour to so many dinner parties :-)

I don't get it.