A Hunted Man

I can’t believe James Naughtie and Andrew Marr called Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt something useful. They should be held to account. It was of course not intended. It was just a slip of the tongue; any cunning linguist could have done it.

It was a slip that would make even the Reverend Spooner blush. Yet two of the BBC's most experienced broadcasters somehow managed to change Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt's surname into the most shocking word in the English language on live radio.

The ultimate verbal faux pas was committed first on Radio 4's Today programme by anchorman James Naughtie, while informing listeners the Culture Secretary was due on air for an interview. He said: “First up after the news we are going to be talking to Jeremy C*** — er Hunt! — the Culture Secretary about ...” At this point Mr Naughtie began struggling not to laugh, and gasped.

He had a reprieve during the hourly pips, but had to read the 8am news headlines while struggling not to burst out laughing. With his delivery ruined by gasps, pauses, squeaks and giggles, he blamed a “coughing fit”.


A Culture Secretary called Hunt

Mr Naughtie apologised later in the programme. “Some of you, we know from emails, thought it funny. Some of you were extremely offended. I am very sorry to anyone who thought it was not what they wanted to hear over their breakfast. Neither did I, needless to say.” Fortunately Mr Hunt, who heard the performance on headphones in the BBC's studio at Westminster, saw the funny side. “I nearly fell off my chair — I was laughing as much as Jim Naughtie”.

“It certainly woke me up in time for the interview. I haven't heard that since I was at school — and never before in front of two million people.” That was not the end of the episode, however. An hour later Andrew Marr referred to the incident on Start The Week on Radio 4, during a discussion on Freudian slips, and blurted out “Jeremy C***” before gasping with laughter.


Reverend William Archibald Spooner

Dr Mike Page, a reader in psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, said it was a classic Spoonerism — the verbal blunder named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), renowned for such slips while warden of New College, Oxford. (Un) fortunately, Spooner's scholarly work has not passed the test of time. Rather, he is remembered for a peculiar speech error he was wont to make: the transposition of the initial letters (sounds) of adjoining words, often with humorous results. It is to this type of speech error (slip of the tongue) that Dr. Spooner lent his name: the spoonerism. Here is a selection of those attributed to Dr. Spooner himself.

•Once Dr. Spooner raised a toast to Her Royal Highness, Queen Victoria, and proclaimed: "Three cheers for our queer old dean!"

•During World War I he reassured his students, "When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out."

•On another occasion, he lionized Britain's farmers as "ye noble tons of soil."

•We learn of these speech errors from the notes of his students, which they generously shared by publishing them. They probably made most if not all of them up themselves. This one was probably a compilation of several others. Dr. Spooner is supposed to have chastised one of his students thus: "You have hissed all the mystery lectures, I saw you fight that liar behind the gymnasium, and, in short, you have tasted the whole worm."

•He is reported to have made a double screw-up upon once dropping his hat then asking: "Will nobody pat my hiccup?"

•He reportedly ended a wedding he was performing with: "It is now kisstomary to cuss the bride."


New College Oxford

Dr. Page went on to explain in his best academic manner; “In this case it is the U' in both Hunt and Culture that is to blame. Naughtie would probably have gone on the say Hulture Secretary' but he stopped in horror.” Dr Page did not think the slips revealed that BBC presenters hold the Culture Secretary, who has ordered the corporation to cut spending, in low esteem.

“Freud's theory of para-praxes is that an unconscious or concealed view may emerge inadvertently in a verbal error, but Naughtie was almost certainly a spoonerism. Marr fell victim to the white bear effect': the more he tried not to think of the word, the more he primed his brain to say it.”

In fact the real culprit, he said, was David Cameron: “If you appoint a man called Hunt to a department called Culture, it is an accident waiting to happen.” This morning's editions of the Today programme and Start The Week had still not been added to the BBC iPlayer this afternoon. The BBC said they were late to allow for editing so viewers were not offended, but they were due to be added later.


The pre-Euro Irish 10 Punt note featuring James Joyce

Maybe, given the coincidence that this spoonerism is au courant and the economic travails of Ireland it may be opportune to revive the hoary Irish Banker joke about whorey Irish Bankers based on its pre euro currency, The Punt;

Q; “Why is the Irish Pound called the Punt?”
A; “ Because it rhymes with Bank Manager.”

There again, maybe not!