Is there a term for switching syllables of words?

Question

Primary question: A common speaking mistake is to exchange syllables of words, saying "It's trace rhyme!" instead of saying "It's race time!", or pronouncing "kickin' chackatory" instead of "chicken cacciatore." Is there an existing name in poetry, linguistics, or English studies for switching syllables of (quasi-)consecutive words? I am not especially interested in the case when switching syllables results in interpretable homonyms or portmanteaus, like in the first example.

Secondary question: if not, what would you call it?

Tertiary question: is there somewhere a (playful?) taxonomy of fruitful or unfruitful lingual aberrations?

In both of your examples, you are really exchanging phonemes, not syllables. — MarcInManhattan, May 04 '22 at 06:05
Perhaps the rules have changed, but requests for resources are off-topic on ELU. — Edwin Ashworth, May 04 '22 at 10:35
A patient of mine constantly describes her neuropathy condition as "neurothapy" by switching the "p" and the "th" sounds. — Anil N Heendeniya, Oct 27 '23 at 11:59

score 16 · Accepted Answer · edited May 04 '22 at 07:09

16

It's a Spoonerism:

A spoonerism is an error in speech in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase. These are named after the Oxford don and ordained minister William Archibald Spooner, who reputedly did this.

— Wikipedia

edited May 04 '22 at 07:09

Andrew Leach

101,901

answered Jun 21 '11 at 13:51

Graham Borland

1,558

10

+1: Technical term is metathesis. – Robusto Jun 21 '11 at 13:54
1

http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/M/metathesis.htm – Unreason Jun 21 '11 at 14:25

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 21 '11 at 14:14

1

In answer to the third part of your question, there is a list of types of changes in pronunciation available on Wikipedia.

answered Jun 21 '11 at 14:14

rintaun

3,236

Perhaps the rules have changed, but requests for resources are off-topic on ELU (and answering them encourages further off-topic questions). – Edwin Ashworth May 04 '22 at 10:34

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 04 '22 at 10:33

0

In an answer to the third part of your question, there is a list of figures that are related to the order on a Rhetoric.ByU site. However, it is not so much playful as much as it is classical.

edited May 04 '22 at 10:33

Edwin Ashworth

83,272

answered Jun 21 '11 at 14:37

Unreason

12,446

Perhaps the rules have changed, but requests for resources are off-topic on ELU (and answering them encourages further off-topic questions). – Edwin Ashworth May 04 '22 at 10:34

Is there a term for switching syllables of words?

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