Have you ever gone out on your lunch break and had a particularly disappointing meal? Perhaps you were inspired to sing a sad ballad about that bad salad. Forgive us — that’s not a bad pun, but an example of a spoonerism. This type of wordplay is “a transposition of usually initial sounds of two or more words.” In other words, it involves mixing up the starting sounds to produce an often-humorous result, such as “sad ballad” being derived from “bad salad.”

The word “spoonerism” is named for William Archibald Spooner, a British clergyman and educator who lived from 1844 to 1930. He’s credited with coming up with the concept and coining many famous spoonerisms, though it’s an open question whether the transpositions were an intentional creation. Some say that Spooner would get nervous and make these slips of the tongue when speaking in public. Others claim his students leaned into the bit and came up with many spoonerisms themselves, which are now attributed to Spooner himself. In either case, the term “spoonerism” was coined as early as 1885. Here are a few fun examples.

Whether these spoonerisms were actually uttered by Spooner or simply attributed to the man later on, they’ve since become synonymous with his legacy. 

Spoonerism: Weight of rages

Correct: Rate of wages

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Spooner once said, “The weight of rages will press harder and harder upon the employer.” While he meant to say, “The rate of wages will press harder and harder upon the employer,” it’s entirely possible for both to be true if employers don’t keep their employees happy.

Spoonerism: Queer old dean

Correct: Dear old queen

No, Spooner wasn’t talking about an odd dean of the college he taught at; he was speaking about Queen Victoria. Though the story may be apocryphal, Spooner once delivered a toast to the queen in which he purportedly said, “Three cheers for our queer old dean!” 

Spoonerism: Hags flung out

Correct: Flags hung out

When discussing the return of British soldiers after World War I, Spooner is said to have told his students, “When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out.” We’d venture to guess that he was likely talking about the Union Jack flag, instead of suggesting that people would be hurling witches out of windows.

Spoonerism: Shoving leopard

Correct: Loving shepherd

While there are many versions of the Bible, we’re pretty sure there aren’t any that refer to God as a “shoving leopard.” Yet, it’s claimed that Spooner once told his parishioners, “Our Lord is a shoving leopard” (instead of a “loving shepherd”). While God is said to be all-powerful, we’ve never heard about the ability to transform into a big, powerful cat.

Spoonerism: Kisstomary to cuss the bride

Correct: Customary to kiss the bride

On her big day, it’s probably a good idea not to cuss out the bride. But don’t tell that to Spooner, as one of his most well-known attributions goes: “It is kisstomary to cuss the bride.” Let’s hope the groom didn’t listen, or else he might be sleeping on the couch on his wedding night.

Not all spoonerisms are associated with their namesake. Many authors have come up with spoonerisms of their own — some intentionally and others by mistake.

Spoonerism: Hoobert Heever

Correct: Herbert Hoover

In 1931, radio host Harry von Zell famously referred to then-President Herbert Hoover as “Hoobert Heever.” The broadcaster was reading a scripted tribute for the president’s birthday when he made the famous flub. Later, von Zell explained that he “was very nervous,” and thought his career might have “ended right there in that one incident.”

Spoonerism: Bass-ackwards on a jass-ack

Correct: A**-backwards on a jacka**

Presidents and spoonerisms seem to go together. Look no further than this 19th-century letter penned by President Abraham Lincoln. While Lincoln lived before the term “spoonerism” was coined, he seems to have been quite familiar with this bit of wordplay. The letter reads as follows: “He said he was riding bass-ackwards on a jass-ack, through a patton-crotch, on a pair of battle-sags, stuffed full of binger-gred, when the animal steered at a scump… he fell right in a great tow-curd.” 

Spoonerism: Runny Babbit

Correct: Bunny Rabbit

Children’s author Shel Silverstein wrote an entire book of spoonerisms titled Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook. The work, published posthumously in 2005, follows the adventures of the title character and his friends Toe Jurtle, Skertie Gunk, Rirty Dat, Dungry Hog, and Snerry Jake.

We all like a little wiggle room, and no one understands this better than weather reporters during hurricane season. Because forecasts are unpredictable, reporters must strike a balance between accuracy and caution: “There appears to be another tropical disturbance forming … ” carefully avoids specifics. The phrase “appears to be” is a textbook example of “hedging,” or using language to express uncertainty.

The verb “hedge,” a synonym for “evade,” comes from the notion of hiding in a hedge to dodge something. And there are many ways to hedge linguistically. For example, modal verbs such as “may,” “could,” “can,” and “might” help us when we can’t commit fully. “The rain might be letting up” leaves room for a sudden downpour. Similarly, reporting verbs (such as “suggest,” “argue,” and “claim”) help present interpretations or tentative conclusions: “Data suggests we’re in for an active hurricane season.”

But hedging isn’t just for reporters or researchers — we do it all the time in conversation, too. You might say, “It seems that you spilled some coffee,” to be polite to a stranger. To a friend, you’d probably cut to the chase and tell them where to find the paper towels.

That’s the key: Hedging isn’t always appropriate or helpful. If something is a fact, state it plainly. We wouldn’t say, “It appears that the Earth orbits the sun.” Overusing hedging can make you sound suspicious, untrustworthy, or hesitant. For instance, “Research suggests vitamin C comes from citrus fruits” is an overuse of hedging. Replace “suggests” with “shows” to convey confidence.

A guiding principle of many style guides, including AP style, is brevity, so hedging should be used only when necessary. But knowing when it’s necessary can be tricky. The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University offers this advice: Ask yourself, “How has it been used in the research you’ve read?” and “Can you make this claim as strongly as you are doing here?” If your claims match the research and the experts, state them confidently. If there’s genuine uncertainty, soften it with some hedging.

Today the word “jazz” is most often associated with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis. But before the term ever described the popular music genre, it referred to another quintessentially American pastime: baseball. 

In the 1910s, sportswriters coined the word with regard to changes in strategy and how the game was being played. This isn’t to say that Babe Ruth picked up a saxophone and played it to celebrate each dinger. Instead, “jazz” was used to describe lively pitches such as the curveball, which were becoming increasingly common. Let’s do a deeper dive into the origins of the word and examine how it later transitioned to the world of music.

Before “jazz,” there was “jasm” — a word meaning “drive” or “energy” that was coined in the mid-19th century. One of the earliest known uses of that term came in Josiah Gilbert Holland’s 1860 novel Miss Gilbert’s Career: An American Story, which featured the line, “If you’ll take thunder and lightning, and a steamboat and a buzz-saw, and mix ’em up, and put ’em into a woman, that’s jasm.” As best as anyone can tell, “jasm” eventually inspired the word “jazz.” However, the latter wasn’t coined until over a half century later.

In 1912, as minor league pitcher Ben Henderson was preparing the day before his opening day start for the Portland Beavers against the Los Angeles Angels, he spoke with a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. “I got a new curve this year,” he said before the game. “I call it the Jazz ball because it wobbles and you simply can’t do anything with it.” The next day, on April 2, 1912, an article titled “Ben’s Jazz Curve” ran in the Los Angeles Times, and while that season was Henderson’s last, the word “jazz” persisted.

The word “jazz” spread throughout the game and appeared in baseball-related contexts many times thereafter, including in a series of baseball articles that ran in the San Francisco Bulletin in March 1913. It soon expanded to describe other sports-related events. A 1915 article in the Daily Californian discussed how “jazz” could liven up a crowd and propel a team to victory: “This spirit of heartiness is carried to the bleachers … It puts fight into the team, ‘jazz’ into the rooting section, and has helped win games for Stanford and Washington.”

In just three years time, the term had gone from describing a minor league baseball player’s tricks to taking the sporting world by storm. But it was in the mid-1910s that the term made its inevitable transition to music.

Around the year 1915, the word “jazz” emerged in a new musical context. Chicago-based newspapers began referring to a popular peppy music genre as “jazz,” which drew influences from the blues and ragtime styles that preceded it.

It’s worth noting that the term wasn’t immediately adopted by musicians, according to music historian Lewis Porter. “Jazz” seemed to be a linguistic creation of white musicians “up North” (which likely meant Chicago), rather than the Black musicians who were playing and developing the genre further south in New Orleans. Porter adds that musicians such as Duke Ellington, Max Roach, and Sidney Bechet all felt similarly about the idea of “jazz music” being a white invention. In his autobiography, Treat It Gentle, Bechet wrote, “Jazz, that’s a name the white people have given to the music.” Instead, those musicians were likely to claim they were playing a version of ragtime rather than jazz.

Nevertheless, the term “jazz” stuck around the music scene, and by the 1920s, it described any type of dance music including waltzes and foxtrots, rather than the jazz we know today. It also came to refer to a way of life; in his 1922 work Tales of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses “jazz” to describe a broader cultural movement in which people cast aside the strict rules of the past in favor of a free and more wild lifestyle.

Unless you’re discussing all-star infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr., it’s been a long time since anyone used “jazz” in the context of baseball. Today it’s primarily used one of two ways. First and foremost, “jazz” refers to the genre of music filled with improvisation, scatting, and syncopated rhythms. This use dates back to the 1950s, when rock ’n’ roll was becoming increasingly popular. Around that time, “jazz” was used to differentiate the distinct musical genre more closely associated with artists such as Miles Davis. 

But some Black musicians in the genre still did not embrace the word “jazz” — in 1972’s What “Jazz” Means to Me, drummer Max Roach said, “The term ‘jazz’ has come to mean the abuse and exploitation of black musicians.” Trumpeter Nicholas Payton suggested the alternative of “Black American Music,” though that’s yet to catch on. Many others, however, came to accept the term “jazz” and didn’t express strong views on the matter. 

In a non-musical context,“jazz” as a verb can also refer to the idea of “jazzing” something up in an effort to make it more exciting, playing off the original meaning of something that exudes pep or vitality.

Cursive, less technically known as “joined-up writing,” is any style of penmanship in which characters are written in a flowing manner without breaks in between. In theory, this makes writing faster and, when well executed, more aesthetically pleasing, particularly in contrast to block letters. In France, children start learning to write in cursive as early as kindergarten, where they learn a specific style of handwriting known as French cursive. 

French cursive has its own unique characteristics that make it instantly recognizable, at least to anyone familiar with European penmanship traditions. It comes from the French ronde (“round”) script, which was meant to lend the characters a round look when taken together. This script appeared in France at the end of the 16th century and was taught in French schools until the 20th century. French cursive, which maintains some of the loops and flourishes of the earlier ronde, was later standardized as part of France’s national education system, ensuring greater consistency in handwriting instruction across the country.

The most notable feature of French cursive is its emphasis on graceful loops and rounded strokes, which can make the script more ornate than, say, its English counterparts. And while French cursive letters can be written at a slant, they are often written at an angle of 90 degrees from the line — in other words, they’re more upright than letters in many other cursive styles, including the cursive typically taught in American schools. 

Some letters in French cursive have unique shapes. For example, the lowercase “p” has an open loop that doesn’t connect the curve to the downstroke of the “p.” Capital letters, meanwhile, frequently include decorative flourishes and very prominent loops. The capital “X,” for one, has so many loops, it nearly resembles a petal or a four-leaf clover. Many letters also tend to begin with a small eyelet, a rounded embellishment that further adds to the all-around elegance of French cursive. 

The Appalachian region of the United States stretches from southern New York all the way south to Alabama and Mississippi. This area of rolling mountains and valleys is home to some 26 million people, as well as one of America’s most distinctive dialects: Appalachian English. Often stereotyped or dismissed as “incorrect” English, Appalachian English is actually a distinct dialect with its own consistent grammar rules, vocabulary, and pronunciation patterns. (While it does share many common characteristics with Southern American English, it has enough unique features to be considered apart.) Appalachian English also has a strong claim to being one of the oldest dialects in the United States. Its roots go as far back as the earliest European settlements in America.

According to Margaret E. L. Renwick, Ph.D., a linguist and associate research professor at Johns Hopkins University, Appalachian English developed from a combination of Scotch Irish, German, and English communities who settled in the United States at the beginning of the 1730s. These settlers then migrated into the more isolated, higher-elevation areas of the Appalachian Mountains. They naturally brought with them the distinctive pronunciation patterns and grammatical structures of their European homelands, with each group contributing linguistic elements that eventually merged to create the distinctive dialect now known as Appalachian English. 

Because of the geographical isolation of the Appalachian communities, the dialect developed over centuries with limited contact with outside linguistic influences. Because of this, Appalachian English has retained similarities with 18th-century colonial American English. It’s commonly stated that Appalachian English is a surviving relic of Elizabethan English,  and that the dialect has preserved a Shakespearean way of speaking from the 16th century. This, however, is a myth. Appalachian English does contain some words that were used by Shakespeare, such as “afeared” to mean “afraid” and “holp” to mean “helped,” but the connection is tenuous at best. 

As noted by linguist Michael Montgomery in Language Myths, Appalachian English may have “more archaisms than other types of American English, but that’s about it.” So, while the Appalachian dialect may have preserved, to some extent, a way of speaking heard in the early colonial days, it’s unlikely that Shakespeare sounded like someone from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Appalachian English contains several grammatical features that distinguish it from standard American English. One of the most notable is the use of what is known as A-prefixing, in which “a-“ attaches to a verb form with the suffix “-ing,” as in, “He was a-hunting” or “She’s a-coming.” (A-prefixing exists in Scottish and Irish dialects, which may explain its appearance in Appalachian English.) 

The dialect also employs distinctive verb forms, including “done” as a helping verb to indicate a completed action (“I done told you”) and unique past-tense forms for certain verbs. Additionally, it features double modals, such as “might could” or “used to could.” Another common phenomenon is the pronunciation of a final “uh” sound as a “y” — for example, “extra” may sound like “extry” and “opera” like “opery.” (The legendary country music show and venue “The Grand Ole Opry” owes its name to this dialect.)

In terms of vocabulary, Appalachian English includes many words that have disappeared from other American dialects. Examples include “airish” (“chilly”), “chancy” (“doubtful”), “everly” (“constantly”), “prettyful” (“beautiful”), “poke” (“paper bag”), and “whistle pig” (“groundhog”). 

Speakers of Appalachian English often face linguistic discrimination and negative stereotypes that portray their speech as uneducated or inferior. These discriminatory attitudes ignore the rich history behind the dialect and typically reflect broader prejudices about rural and working-class communities. For speakers of Appalachian English, their dialect represents far more than just a way of communicating — it embodies cultural identity, belonging, and connection to place.

Increasingly, it’s not only linguists who recognize the importance of documenting and respecting Appalachian English as a legitimate, fascinating, and historically significant dialect. In 2019, Tennessee became the first state to officially recognize and honor Appalachian English, calling it a “fully legitimate dialect and most deserving of the respect afforded other dialects of American English.” 

That’s not to say, however, that the future of the Appalachian dialect is assured. It continues to be stigmatized, while also facing challenges from increased mobility, education policies that discourage dialect use, and the powerful influence of media (and social media) that promotes standard American English. But the dialect remains strong in many communities, adapting to the ever-changing nature of modern life while maintaining its distinctive character — as it has done for the last few centuries.