Word Leprosy

I suffer from a bad case of it. And the condition only seems to worsen with time. AND it's apparently contagious! I don't know what causes it-- maybe when I speak my mouth goes just a hair faster than my mind, and trips over the words.

Last night I was reminded of the term "Spoonerism", in which the first letters/parts of a couple words in your sentence are inverted. Happens to the best of us. I had noticed that it was starting to happen to me more frequently. Such gems as "tark shank" (shark tank) and "cue toot turtles" (two cute turtles) and "turgers and bacos" (burgers and tacos) are among my favorite Spoonerisms that have slipped from my lips.

Oh, but Helly takes it a step further. How about switching whole WORDS around?
"Your son made a book out of houses"
"The stuffed turtles have leads of paw"
"Our cash got checked"
"Rub a tummy's alligator"
"Your head's son is hard"

My absolute favorite? Is also one of my favorite TV shows: "Animal's Funniest Planet". You know what's especially sad about that one? The fact that I've termed it that so often, the real title (Planet's Funniest Animals) no longer sounds correct to me. It sounds strange and mixed up.

Still not funny enough for you? How about something akin to mixing metaphors: mixing words to create new meanings.
Classic example is one I presented to my brother-in-law a year ago: "I have a beef to pick with you!" (combination of "bone to pick with you" and "beef with you")
Another time, I accused Allan of being the "sauce" of my frustration (combo of "source" and "cause")
And when I made an age dig at Allan, it didn't quite come out right: "You have to forget, I'm not that old!" (combo of "you have to remember" and "you can't forget")

I have to say, that the most amusing of all my word mixups is the title of the post itself. For a long time, we joked about my having "word dyslexia", which is a rather appropriate description of all of the above word mishaps. Then one day my mouth was *really* getting ahead of my mind, and I totally blanked on the word "dyslexia". Next thing I knew, my mouth blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and from that day forward, we laughed about my "word leprosy" instead.

Funnier still? (or sadder, depending on how you look at it) This stuff is contagious! Allan never had trouble mixing up words before he met me. Now he commits word leprosy almost as often as I do. Even young Todd is starting to show signs of it. Fortunately he's able to laugh just as hard about it as his parents laugh at their own foibles with the English language.

Ah, word leprosy. One might be persuaded to seek a cure, but then where would all these ridiculous gems come from? Nah, I think I'll keep it.

How about you? Care to share any memorable doozies that came flying out of your mouth? :-)