Malapropisms and Spoonerisms

A Malapropism is where the characters misspeak words they intend to use by substituting words that sound the same but have a different meaning.

Mrs Malaprop was a character in Richard Sheridan’s play The Rivals (1775)
- ‘She is as headstrong as an allegory (alligator) on the banks of the Nile’.
- If I reprehend (apprehend) anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular (vernacular) tongue, and a nice derangement (arrangement) of epitaphs (epithets).

Dogberry was a character from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
- ‘Our Watch Sir, have comprehended (apprehended) two auspicious (suspicious) persons.

A Neologism is the accidental or deliberate effort to make up a new word like Blogosphere or Malware.

William Spooner (1844-1930) was the Warden of New College, Oxford and a Minister.
He swopped the consonants or vowels between two words in the same phrase. In reality, Spooner only made one Spoonerism, and all the rest are apocryphal, but by 1921 the term ‘Spoonerism’ was established and well known.
- ‘Please leave Oxford on the next town drain’ (down train)
- ‘The Lord is a shoving leopard’ (loving shepherd)
- ‘Three cheers for our queer old dean’ (dear old queen)
- ‘A well boiled icicle’ (a well oiled bicycle)