RADIO presenter James Naughtie’s descent into the world of Dr Spooner earlier this week has amused many, not least yours truly. For those who do not listen to the Radio Four’s flagship Today programme, Mr Naughtie made a bit of an embarrassing blunder while introducing John Hunt the Culture Secretary .

Now if you know what a ‘Spoonerism’ is, I needn’t explain further. If you don’t, it is an unintentional, often unfortunate, transposition of initial word sounds.

A great example - before Mr Naughtie’s verbal slip on Monday - is the Spoonerism delivered more than half a century ago by the BBC presenter McDonald Hobley when he introduced the government minister Sir Stafford Cripps as Sir Stifford Crapps.

A later example is the ‘shining wit’ Spoonerism uttered by comedian Barry Cryer when describing the talents of a comedic rival while on the wonderful Radio 4 panel show I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue.

The problem with live broadcasting, is that once such verbal bloomers are out there, they are impossible to rectify. All one can do is accept one’s verbal fallibility with good grace - and not descend into a laughing/coughing fit as Mr Naughtie did after his John Hunt blunder.

Sadly, not all linguistic errors are funny or even entertainting. During a radio interview before Labour were elected in 1997, Gordon Brown made a typically sober comment about ‘a central cornerstone’ of his party’s economic policy. My thought at the time was if this guy doesn’t understand precisely what he is saying, how can we trust him with the nation’s finances?

But then again, if George W Bush can have his finger on the ‘nucular’ button or declare that the French don’t have a word for entrepreneur....

Anyway, Mr Brown might argue in his defence that a Chancellor needs to be much better at maths than English, which is, I suppose, a fair point.

I certainly would much prefer politicians to make a mess of words rather than figures. At least transposing sounds wouldn’t leave us billions of pounds in debt!