Customer Reviews

Bred Any Good Rooks Lately? (Intrepid Linguistic Library)

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I love spoonerisms and puns and this book has a ton of them. My favourite example in the book is the one where Anne Widdecombe made her speech to the Tory faithful on the evils of European monetary integration. She meant to say "I don't want a European to snatch my pound" but she ended up saying pound my snatch, which made for an image I tried in vain to supress in my imagination. All in all an excellent light read.

Many people don't know the spoonerism was eponymously named after the famous professor Spooner, who was especially prone to these when he got excited. One time when he went to church, back in the days when they still had assigned pews, he found a woman occupying his seat, and said to her: "Mardon me padam, you are occupuing the wrong pie, may I sew you to another sheat?"

Overall, a very good book on this and other funny verbal conlabfulations. Oops, I mean confabulations.

To give more examples than the other the other reviewers already have might spoil the fun. But what they don't mention is that this is a collection, with stories and tales by Stephen King, Annie Dillard, Isaac Asimov, Mark Harris, John Haldeman, Lawrence Block, Willard Espy, Mark Strand, and a few dozen others. Puns, spoonerisms, and the like aren't quite my thing. But if they're up your alley, you'll love this collection - a poot on each hage! Uh... hoot on each page. ;)