In case you've never heard of them, spoonerisms were created by Rev. W.A.Spooner and brought to the public eye by comedian F. Chase Taylor, AKA,Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle. These twisted tales, which  hail from theearly- to mid-20th Century, take traditional fairy tales or other knownstories and swap the letters or sounds within them in unique ways. Forexample, some supposedly authentic spoonerisms include changing "a crushingblow" into "a blushing crow" and transforming "battleships and cruisers" to"cattle ships and bruisers." Now imagine this being done with virtuallyevery line in a story and you'll get the idea about how funny these crazystories can be. 

But they're not just fun to listen to and try to follow, these creativemash-ups also allow children the opportunity to play with words. By engagingkids in paying attention to every word and encouraging them to even come upwith their own spoonerisms, language takes on a fun new persona. For kidswho may or may not be getting a love of language from the classroom, thiscan be a great teaching device. The great thing about spoonerisms is thatthey don't feel like teaching; they're just fun.

If you want to see spoonerisms in action, enter "spoonerisms" into YouTubeand watch some of the videos that come up. There are some great professionalstorytellers who are practiced in this art and they're entertaining towatch.

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