It’s the juxtaposition of ‘u’ on ‘u’ that did for Jim. According to scientific study, a sequence of words with the same vowels in the same place can trip us up, as poor Jim Naughtie discovered on Monday morning.
It’s the juxtaposition of ‘u’ on ‘u’ that did for Jim. According to scientific study, a sequence of words with the same vowels in the same place can trip us up, as poor Jim Naughtie discovered on Monday morning. If you missed the classic radio moment, he was trying to announce Jeremy Hunt, the culture minister, just before the eight o’clock news but didn’t quite get his name right, muddling up those initial letters. He then had to carry on talking, giving us the headlines, through his embarrassed giggles (I kept wondering why his colleague Evan didn’t help him out by taking over, but he was probably just as paralysed by laughter as Jim).
Naughtie’s faux pas was very hear to clear, and some poor souls with no sense of humour, and even less pity, immediately sent off grumpy emails of complaint about such behaviour at breakfast time on Radio 4, as if such a linguistic lapse had never happened to them. I wish. My grandfather, from whom I’ve inherited the weakness, used to do it from the pulpit, though fortunately for him he never made quite as drastic a slip-up as Jim’s. It’s no coincidence that the spoonerism is named after a vicar, William Archibald Spooner, since these verbal tics usually happen when you’re in a hyped-up, open-to-embarrassment situation. (Spooner was a shy, nervous man, who for reasons unknown chose to devote his life to a profession that demands extrovert public speaking.)
Let’s hope for Jim’s sake that Hunt is soon moved to another Cabinet post, or never again appears on Today.
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