Abstract
Abstract The converse of a misunderstanding, on the speaker's side, is the 'slip of the tongue'. The speaker may mistakenly transpose two sounds, either within a phrase (our queer dean for our dear queen) or over a whole sentence. The former case is an example of the classic 'spoonerism', so named after the Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844-1930), an Oxford don who is famous for saying 'I have never addressed so many tons of soil' at a workers' meet ing; or who, when telling off a student, is supposed to have said 'You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You will leave by the next town drain.' It is well known that these slips of the tongue occupy an important place in Freudian theory. It is perhaps less obvious that they should also hold a special interest for linguists.
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