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Tongue-tied Oxford don to make love with hesitation (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

spooner

'tongue-tied oxford don' is the definition.
(William Spooner, academic known for Spoonerisms)

'make love with hesitation' is the wordplay.
'make love' becomes 'spoon' (spoon can mean to canoodle or make love).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'hesitation' becomes 'er' (sound used when hesitating).
'spoon'+'er'='SPOONER'

'to' is the link.

(Other definitions for spooner that I've seen before include "Victorian cleric who "fed sunny things"" , "One who gave his name to a transposition of sounds in speech" , "Initial-transposing clergyman" , "Original transposer of initial letters in speech" , "Oxford academic notable for mixing up his syllables when talking, d. 1930" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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