They even pronounce his speeches splurgy.—Yale Tomahawk, May, 1852.
SPOON. In the University of Cambridge, Eng., the last of each class of the honors is humorously denominated The Spoon. Thus, the last Wrangler is called the Golden Spoon; the last Senior Optime, the Silver Spoon; and the last Junior Optime, the Wooden Spoon. The Wooden Spoon, however, is par excellence, "The Spoon."—Gradus ad Cantab.
See WOODEN SPOON.
SPOON, SPOONY, SPOONEY. A man who has been drinking till he becomes disgusting by his very ridiculous behavior, is said to be spoony drunk; and hence it is usual to call a very prating, shallow fellow a rank spoon.—Grose.
Mr. Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, says:—"We use the word only in the latter sense. The Hon. Mr. Preston, in his remarks on the Mexican war, thus quotes from Tom Crib's remonstrance against the meanness of a transaction, similar to our cries for more vigorous blows on Mexico when she is prostrate:
"'Look down upon Ben,—see him, dunghill all o'er,
Insult the fallen foe that can harm him no more.
Out, cowardly spooney! Again and again,
By the fist of my father, I blush for thee, Ben.'
"Ay, you will see all the spooneys that ran, like so many dunghill champions, from 54 40, stand by the President for the vigorous prosecution of the war upon the body of a prostrate foe." —N.Y. Tribune, 1847.
Now that year it so happened that the spoon was no spooney.—Alma Mater, Vol. I. p. 218.
Not a few of this party were deluded into a belief, that all studious and quiet men were slow, all men of proper self-respect exclusives, and all men of courtesy and good-breeding spoonies. —Collegian's Guide, p. 118.
Suppose that rustication was the fate of a few others of our acquaintance, whom you cannot call slow, or spoonies either, would it be deemed no disgrace by them?—Ibid., p. 196.