| Peter Piper | |
| Cover: | Peter piper1836.jpg |
| Caption: | Illustration from Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation (1836 American ed.) |
| Type: | Nursery rhyme |
| Published: | 1813 |
"Peter Piper" is an English-language nursery rhyme and well-known alliteration tongue-twister. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19745.[1]
The traditional version, as published in John Harris' Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation in 1813, is:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?[2]
Common modern versions include:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick
if he picked a peck of pickled peppers?January 2024.
The earliest version of this tongue-twister was published in Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation by John Harris (1756–1846) in London in 1813, which includes a one-name tongue-twister for each letter of the alphabet in the same style. However, the rhyme was apparently known at least a generation earlier.[3] Some authors have identified the subject of the rhyme as Pierre Poivre, an eighteenthcentury French horticulturalist and government administrator of Mauritius, who once investigated the Seychelles' potential for spice cultivation.[4] [5]
The Peter Piper Principle is a cognitive error that people make, where they tend to confuse two words that resemble each other; in particular, when the first letter(s) are the same. Studies have shown that this applies when people confuse the names of other people (although other tendencies also apply).[6] [7]
Novelists are well aware of the peril of giving two characters names that start with the same letter, because readers have a tendency to get them confused.[8] [9] Names of medications also tend to be confused when they start with the same few letters.[10]