EWE BETCHA

Lack of ram may preclude rack of lamb

What’s so funny about this? The setting for this spoonerism is a bit surreal, I’ll admit. I could have placed it in a restaurant, but then the context would have been just verbal. I preferred a more countrified setting where sheep were likely to be. But then, of course, that meant putting the diner and waiter out in the field with the sheep. That’s why the guy is asking “what’s fresh?” He must be a fan of really raw meat. Then, sadly, the waiter has to disappoint him, informing him that because they don’t have a ram available to service the ewe’s (female sheep), they don’t have any little lambs running around, so he won’t be able to get the dish he wants to order. In other countries, like England, mutton is a popular meat. But in the U.S. you almost never see it on a menu. Americans do love lamb, which is the baby sheep, but not so much the adult female sheep, and never a ram, or male sheep. This spoonerism works very nicely because the absence or