Does Anyone Else Accidentally Use Spoonerisms in Speech?

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When I get nervous or excited, I will often screw up the first syllables of words in my efforts to have my mouth keep up with my brain. For example, my psychiatrist was talking about upping my dosage of medicine from 20 mg to 30 mg, but stated that it may be more difficult for me to take them because the pharmaceutical companies don't make 30 mg pills, only 20 and 40. I saw a picture in my mind of the pill splitter my husband bought, and in my effort to say we had a pill splitter before the picture disappeared and I forgot, I said, "that's okay; I have a spill plitter." I said this two or three times before I realized I'd said it wrong (I have a mild stutter when I get nervous as well). Once I corrected myself, my psychiatrist said he preferred "spill plitter," possibly to make me feel better about having a syntax error.

Does anyone else do this, or is it just me? Also, will this effect my potential as a university professor?

Yes I do this too.

I don't think it will hurt your chances at being a professor. People will almost always know what you really meant to say, and students may find you more approachable or likeable because of it. If you own it and can have a sense of humor about it, it will be fine.

So if I make a joke about it, it'll be okay? I suppose that would make sense, like when my professor cracked a joke about her pronouncing "refuse" (garbage) like "refuse" (as in to refuse to do something) when she discovered she used the wrong word.

I suppose the Aspergers will be more likely to hurt my chances than my accidental spoonerisms would.

I think so. The main thing is to show that you have confidence.

At a university level, it should be fine. If you were teaching younger kids, it might be more problematic because some students will look for any weakness in a teacher as something they can exploit.

Yes I do this too.

Not only out loud when talking, but it also occurs silently in my head. The one that happened yesterday was "droggy"; as in, "these pills are making me droggy", it was a combination of 'drowsy' and 'groggy'!

Oh yes I do, do this. If my anxiety level increases, I will start swapping more than that first syllable, and complete gibberish will come out of my mouth. The example you give is a perfect example of what I do when not stressed to bad.

I like "Spoonerisms."

Ever watch the Bowery Boys? Slip Mahoney used Spoonerisms at times (that's why he was called Slip).

One time, the speaker at a joint session of Congress referred to President Herbert Hoover as "Hubert Heever."

Spoonerisms are an interesting phenomenon, in my opinion.

I have not, but I'll check it out. I love to go see a guy called Zilch the Toryseller at my local Renaissance fair. He jokes that the only stories he won't tell are "Robin Hood" because of Friar Tuck, anything with pirates because of fighting buccaneers, and one other that I cannot remember right now.

I regularly have issues with certain syllables.
My main issue is three or more vowel based syllables in a row and hard S sounds.

Funny enough my last name begins with a hard SH sound.

Since I learned to speak hard German sounds instead of soft English sounds, I constantly get told to soften my sounds.

LOL...that has to do with a certain term which people think is of Anglo-Saxon--but is perhaps (as the theory goes) derived from Dutch sailor talk.

Before the use of that "certain term," lovemaking was known as "swiving." See Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales."

Think about the swivel chair. What does it do?

Oh, yeah----I used to do this, quite often----not so much, anymore, though. Several years ago, I read a couple of different things that said it's actually Dyslexia. For me, it's usually just transposing the first letter of each word, of a phrase----like, I was famous for always saying Conda Hivic (the "C" was pronounced like you would say "sun"), for Honda Civic. Also, I can mix-up entire words----like, service, for surface (I STILL mess this one, up).

To my knowledge, I'm not dyslexic, since I can read well, but it does run in my family (they say it runs in families with a lot of left handed people, and in mine, the lefties outnumber the righties). I will say, however, that I do have to read carefully, especially if I'm tired, because I can add letters to words. For example, I once was reading Dr. Zhivago and read the word "fratricide" as "frateriside." It wasn't until I went to ask someone what it meant that I could see the correct word. I also cannot read cursive at all, nor can I write it.

Happens to me all the time.

I don't have anything to do with working in the field of Psychiatry / Psychology but, IMO, you DO have Dyslexia, because what you described is exactly IT. There's alot of misunderstanding of what Dyslexia is----I used to misunderstand it, myself. I used to say that I had "Dyslexia of the mouth" because of my spoonerisms; but, come to find-out Dyslexia is VERBAL, as well.

That's interesting. I'll talk to my psychiatrist about it, because it would be interesting to find out. I know my uncle, who has severe dyslexia, was the one to help me with math while I was in elementary school because we both were and are notorious for swapping numbers.

Oh, I have said things like that all my life - off and on. I don't think it is any big deal and I doubt that it would negatively affect a career in academia. Probably making a little joke about it when it happens is the best approach.