Spankly Freaking and Balking Tackwards : Did you say Demosthenes? Speak Up!

Spankly Freaking and Balking Tackwards : Did you say Demosthenes? is a follow-up posting on our previous announcement about the new book Um. There seems to be quite a market out there for this stuff, so here are some interesting links about ... uh ... well ... words.

Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (Podcast)

Russell Frank's blog Spankly Freaking

Away With Words and Wordworking

Dave Brondsema

The Wunder Blog and their Daily Bug posting titled Balking Tackwards

VKpedia

The Grumpy Old Man has some Pedantic Moans in this direction and gives a nice list of Spoonerisms

Goonerisms Spalore! has a list (Parental Guidance recommended)

Joho the Blog has an on-the-borderline list (Parental Guidance definitely recommended)

Home is where The Horse is in the posting The man behind the muddle talks about Spooner

Vox Lucens On Being Brilliant writes that he loves spoonerisms and creates the following:
"Jadies and lentlemen of je thury, her jient is a clerk."

and see, generally,
Figures of Speech
with "Many definitions from: The American Heritage ® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from InfoSoft International, Inc. All rights reserved."

I have a private theory that Spoonerisms and similar verbal derailments occur when we are thinking one thing while trying - or having - to say another - but I have no proof of this, only my own experience. It is a bit like getting a mental block - your mind is not where your thought is.