spoonerize means to produce the kind of play on words called a spoonerism (from). Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 100 out of 100.
Why “spoonerize” is a great word
To transpose the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, producing a humorous play on words known as a spoonerism. From the surname of Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), an English clergyman and scholar known for such verbal slips, and the verb-forming suffix -ize. First attested in 1927. Unlike a malapropism, which substitutes a wrong, similar-sounding word, or a pun, which pivots on double meaning, to spoonerize is a precise phonetic scramble. It is the accidental proclamation of a “well-boiled icicle” for a “well-oiled bicycle,” the toast to “our queer old dean” instead of “our dear old queen,” the hissed warning about a “fighting a liar” in a “lighting a fire”—a brief, benign sabotage of speech that reveals the fragile, fricative machinery of meaning.
Etymology
From Spooner + -ize.
verb
- To produce the kind of play on words called a spoonerism (from).