Welcome to Spoonerize -- a word game.

Build Status Gem Version License: MIT

Spoonerism [noun] a verbal error in which a speaker accidentally transposes the initial sounds or letters of two or more words, often to humorous effect.

You can view the documentation here

About

We've all done it; someone says a phrase, and you flip the first few letters around, and sometimes, it makes an even funnier phrase. For example: "Tomb Raider" becomes "Romb Taider". Well, when I was in high school, we took it further -- probably too far -- and made a rule set. This gem, which includes a command-line executable, follows those rules, which are:

  • Each word drops its leading consonant group and takes the leading consonant group of the next word.
  • If the word has no leading consonants, nothing is dropped, but it still receives the next word's leading consonants if it has any.
  • If the next word has no leading consonants, the current word receives no consonants, but will still lose its own if it has any.
  • When being "lazy", common words ("the", "his", etc.) remain unchanged.
  • If the word to pull from is excluded, that word is skipped, and you pull the leading consonants from the next non-excluded word.
  • "Q" and "U" should stay together (like "queen").
  • "Y" is treated like a leading consonant by itself or before a vowel sound (like "yellow"), but like a leading vowel before a consonant (like "yttrium").
  • A lot of the time, the words won't look how they're supposed to sound, as you go by how the word used to sound, not how it's spelled. For instance, $ spoonerize two new cuties becomes "no cew twuties", but it would be pronounced "new coo tooties", as the words retain their original sounds.

Installation

Automated

Just install the gem!

gem install spoonerize

If you don't have permission on your system to install Ruby or gems, I recommend using rbenv, or you can try the manual methods below.

Manual

From your terminal, clone the repository where you want it. From there, you have a couple of installation options.

git clone https://github.com/evanthegrayt/spoonerize.git
cd spoonerize

# Use rake to build and install the gem.
rake install

# OR manually link the executable somewhere. If you use this method, you cannot
# move the repository after you link it!
ln -s $PWD/bin/spoonerize /usr/local/bin/spoonerize

Command Line Usage

Call the executable and pass a phrase as arguments:

$ spoonerize not too shabby # => tot shoo nabby

If it didn't flip the way you wanted it to, you can reverse it:

$ spoonerize -r not too shabby # => shot noo tabby

If you find a phrase funny enough to save, you can pass the -s flag. This will write the results to the logfile. You can print your log file with the -p flag. It will show the original phrase, the end result, and the options used to get the results. For example:

$ spoonerize -s not too shabby
tot shoo nabby
Saving...

$ spoonerize -rs not too shabby
shot noo tabby
Saving...

$ spoonerize -p
not too shabby | tot shoo nabby | No Options
not too shabby | shot noo tabby | Reverse

Here is a list of all available options:

-r, --[no-]reverse               Reverse flipping
-l, --[no-]lazy                  Skip small words
-c, --[no-]consonants-only       Only flip consonant-starting words
-m, --[no-]map                   Print words mapping
-p, --[no-]print-log             Print all entries in the log
-s, --[no-]save                  Save results in log
    --exclude=WORD               Words to skip

Config File

You can create a Ruby config file called ~/.spoonerizerc. The CLI loads this file automatically before it parses command-line options, so options set in the file can still be overridden at runtime by executable flags.

Spoonerize.configure do |config|
  config.excluded_words = []
  config.lazy = false
  config.consonants_only = false
  config.reverse = false
  config.logfile_name = File.expand_path("~/.cache/spoonerize/spoonerize.csv")
end

Because the file is Ruby, you can set only the values you want to change.

API

The API is fully documented, but below are some quick examples of how you could use this in your Ruby code.

require 'spoonerize'

spoonerism = Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new("not", "too", "shabby")

spoonerism.to_s
# => tot shoo nabby

reversed = Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new("not", "too", "shabby", reverse: true)
reversed.to_s
# => shot noo tabby

Spoonerize.configure do |config|
  config.logfile_name = File.expand_path("~/.cache/spoonerize/spoonerize.csv")
end
Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new("not", "too", "shabby").save

To leave vowel-starting words alone, enable consonants-only mode:

Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new("turn", "up", "son", consonants_only: true).to_s
# => surn up ton

You can also configure global defaults before creating a spoonerism:

Spoonerize.configure do |config|
  config.reverse = true
end

s = Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new("not", "too", "shabby")
s.spoonerize
# => shot noo tabby

Options passed directly to Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new only apply to that instance.

Passing words as an array is deprecated and will be removed in Spoonerize 1.0:

Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new(%w[not too shabby])

Or load a config file manually:

Spoonerize.load_config_file("~/.spoonerizerc")
s = Spoonerize::Spoonerism.new("not", "too", "shabby")

Self Promotion

I do these projects for fun, and I enjoy knowing that they're helpful to people. Consider starring the repository if you like it! If you love it, follow me on GitHub!