A lack of pies for a pack of lies – what spoonerisms reveal about how the brain produces speech

Spoonerisms can be silly and make you laugh. But linguists see something more: a rare glimpse of how the mind plans speech before we even open our mouths.

By: Karen Stollznow, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: July 14, 2026

Words: 1,191

Last Updated: 1 week ago

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By Karen Stollznow, University of Colorado Boulder; Griffith University

“You have hissed the mystery lecture. In fact, you’ve tasted the whole worm!”

If you’ve never heard that sentence before, you’re probably wondering what on earth it means. It was supposedly delivered by the absent-minded Rev. William Archibald Spooner after a student missed his history lecture and wasted the whole term.

These accidental mix-ups of sounds, known as spoonerisms, are among the most well-known speech …

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