Tongue twister explained

A tongue twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Additionally, they can be used as exercises to improve pronunciation and fluency. Some tongue twisters produce results that are humorous (or humorously vulgar) when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their amusement value.

Types of tongue twisters

Some tongue twisters rely on rapid alternation between similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., s pronounced as /[s]/ and sh pronounced as /[ʃ]/), combining two different alternation patterns,^[1] familiar constructs in loanwords, or other features of a spoken language in order to be difficult to articulate. For example, the following sentence was said to be "the most difficult of common English-language tongue twisters" by William Poundstone.^[2]

These deliberately difficult expressions were popular in the 19th century. The popular "she sells seashells" tongue twister was originally published in 1850 as a diction exercise. The term "tongue twister" was first applied to this kind of expression in 1895.

"She sells seashells" was turned into a popular song in 1908, with words by British songwriter Terry Sullivan and music by Harry Gifford. According to folklore, it was said to be inspired by the life and work of Mary Anning, an early fossil collector.^[3] However, there is no evidence that Anning inspired either the tongue twister or the song.^[4]

Another well-known tongue twister is "Peter Piper":

Many tongue twisters use a combination of alliteration and rhyme. They have two or more sequences of sounds that require repositioning the tongue between syllables, then the same sounds are repeated in a different sequence. An example of this is the song "Betty Botter", first published in 1899:^[5]

There are twisters that make use of compound words and their stems, for example:

The following twister entered a contest in Games Magazine on the November/December 1979 issue and was announced the winner on the March/April 1980 issue:^{[6] [7]}

Some tongue twisters take the form of words or short phrases which become tongue twisters when repeated rapidly (the game is often expressed in the form "Say this phrase three (or five, or ten, etc.) times as fast as you can!"). Examples include:

• Toy boat
• Cricket critic
• Unique New York
• A proper copper coffee pot
• Red leather, yellow leather
• Irish wristwatch, Swiss wristwatch
• Peggy Babcock
• Red lorry, yellow lorry

Some tongue twisters are used for speech practice and vocal warmup:^[8]

Tongue twisters are used to train pronunciation skills in non-native speakers:^[9]

Other types of tongue twisters derive their humor from producing vulgar results only when performed incorrectly:

Some twisters are amusing because they sound incorrect even when pronounced correctly:

In 2013, MIT researchers claimed that this is the trickiest twister to date:^{[10] [11]}

Linguistics of tongue twisters

Phonemes

Based on the MIT confusion matrix of 1620 single phoneme errors, the phoneme with the greatest margin of speech error is l [l] mistaken for r [r]. Other phonemes that had a high level of speech error include s [s] mistaken for sh [ʃ], f [f] for p [p], r [r] for l [l], w [w] for r [r], and many more.^[12] These sounds are most likely to transform to a similar sound when placed in near vicinity of each other. Most of these mix-ups can be attributed to the two phonemes having similar areas of articulation in the mouth.^[13]

Pronunciation difficulty is also theorized to have an effect on tongue twisters.^[12] For example, t [t] is thought to be easier to pronounce than ch [tʃ]. As a result, speakers may naturally transform ch [tʃ] to t [t] or when trying to pronounce certain tongue twisters.

Fortis and lenis

Fortis and lenis are the classification of strong and weak consonants.

Some characteristics of strong consonants include:^[12]

• high frequency in a language
• earlier development in language acquisition
• lower placement on the phonological hierarchy

It is common for more difficult sounds to be replaced with strong consonants in tongue twisters. This is partially determinant of which sounds are most likely to transform to other sounds with linguistic confusion.

Other languages

Tongue twisters exist in many languages, such as Spanish; Castilian: trabalenguas|lit=tongue jammer, and German: Zungenbrecher|lit=tongue breaker.

The complexity of tongue twisters varies from language to language. For example, in Buganda vowels differ by length so tongue twisters exploit vowel length: "Akawala akaawa Kaawa kaawa akaawa ka wa?". Translation: "The girl who gave Kaawa bitter coffee, where is she from?"^[14]

Shibboleths

Shibboleths, that is, phrases in a language that are difficult for someone who is not a native speaker of that language to say might be regarded as a type of tongue-twist. An example is Georgian baq'aq'i ts'q'alshi q'iq'inebs ("a frog croaks in the water"), in which q is a uvular ejective. Another example, the Czech and Slovak strč prst skrz krk ("stick a finger through the throat") is difficult for a non-native speaker due to the absence of vowels, although syllabic r is a common sound in Czech, Slovak and some other Slavic languages.

Finger-fumblers

The sign language equivalent of a tongue twister is called a finger-fumbler.^{[15] [16]} According to Susan Fischer, the phrase Good blood, bad blood is a tongue twister in English as well as a finger-fumbler in ASL.^[17]

One-syllable article

One-syllable article is a form of Mandarin Chinese tongue twister, written in Classical Chinese. Due to Mandarin Chinese having only four tonal ranges (compared to nine in Cantonese, for example), these works sound like a work of one syllable in different tonal range when spoken in Mandarin,^[18] but are far more comprehensible when spoken in another dialect.

In popular culture

• In 1951 Danny Kaye recorded a Sylvia Fine song titled "Tongue Twisters".
• The children's books by Dr. Seuss contain a significant number of tongue twisters, with Oh Say Can You Say?, and Fox in Socks being the most extreme cases.^[19]
• In the 1952 film Singin' in the Rain, movie star Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) uses tongue twisters, such as Peter Piper, while learning proper diction so he can make the transition from silent films to "talkies" in 1920s Hollywood. He also turns one of them ("Moses supposes his toeses are roses") into a song and dance number along with his best friend Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor).
• In 1968, Jack Webb guested on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and took part in a parody of Dragnet. The premise was Webb (as Sgt. Joe Friday) grilling Carson about "kleptomaniac Claude Cooper from Cleveland, who copped clean copper clappers kept in a closet." The sketch was regularly shown on anniversary specials.
• In the episode "You Said a Mouseful" from Pinky and the Brain, both Pinky and Brain go through a collage of tongue twisters that cover almost every category possible.
• The TV series BoJack Horseman contains increasingly convoluted tongue twisters as the show progresses. The lines are often delivered by Princess Carolyn, and a notable set involves the actress 'Courtney Portnoy', for example: "How would you enjoy joining Portnoy for a scorched soy porterhouse pork four-courser at Koi?" followed by "Glorify your source, but don't make it feel forced, of course. And try the borscht!" ^[20]
• Many examples of tongue twisters can be found in hip hop music. A commonly used tongue twister is "Peter Piper", as seen in the 1986 Run-D.M.C. song "Peter Piper".

See also

• Alliteration
• Announcer's test
• Barbara's Rhubarb Bar
• Malapropism
• Spoonerism
• Theophilus Thistle

External links

• Interview with MIT researcher Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel

Notes and References

1. Web site: Speech Science: Tongue Twisters and Valley Girls . . 2018-04-05 . 2018-04-02 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180402035500/https://www.npr.org/2013/12/06/249261289/speech-science-tongue-twisters-and-valley-girls . live .
2. Web site: The Ultimate . Poundstone, William . William Poundstone . williampoundstone.net . 13 March 2010 . 21 May 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090521093908/http://williampoundstone.net/Ultimate.html . live .
3. Web site: The Fossil Hunter . Shelley Emmling . 9 December 2010 . 24 March 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120324084430/http://www.shelfari.com/books/5948724/The-Fossil-Hunter . live .
4. Web site: She Sells Seashells and Mary Anning: Metafolklore with a Twist . Stephen Winick . 26 July 2017 . 29 June 2018 . 29 June 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180629023722/https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/07/she-sells-seashells-and-mary-anning-metafolklore-with-a-twist/ . live .
5. Web site: Wells . Carolyn . 1899 . The Jingle Book . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20141112032231/https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24560 . 2014-11-12 . 2024-06-04 . Project Gutenberg.
6. 1979 . New Twist on Tongue Twisters . . 3 . 14 . 92 . Internet Archive.
7. 1980 . Contest Results . . 4 . 16 . 64 . Internet Archive.
8. Web site: Gordon . David . David Gordon's Favorite Vocal Warmup Tongue Twisters . 28 April 2021 . 9 October 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211009124644/http://www.spiritsound.com/music/twisters.html . live .
9. Mu’in . Fatchul . Amrina . Rosyi . Amelia . Rizky . 2017-12-04 . Tongue Twister, Students’ Pronunciation Ability, and Learning Styles . live . Arab World English Journal . 8 . 4 . 365-383 . 10.24093/awej/vol8no4.25 . 2229-9327 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210625094441/https://awej.org/tongue-twister-students-pronunciation-ability-and-learning-styles/ . 2021-06-25 . . free.
10. News: Annear. Steve. MIT Researchers Say They Have Created The Trickiest Tongue Twister To Date. 4 April 2015. Boston. 5 December 2013. 8 April 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150408145229/http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/12/05/mit-tongue-twister-trickiest-to-say/. live.
11. Web site: Grossman . Samantha . 2013-12-05 . Can You Tackle the World’s Trickiest Tongue Twister? . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20200929155946/https://newsfeed.time.com/2013/12/05/can-you-tackle-the-worlds-trickiest-tongue-twister/ . 2020-09-29 . 2024-06-04 . TIME.
12. Shattuck-Hufnagel. Stefanie. Klatt. Dennis H.. 1979-02-01. The limited use of distinctive features and markedness in speech production: evidence from speech error data. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. en. 18. 1. 41–55. 10.1016/S0022-5371(79)90554-1. 0022-5371. 2020-10-10. 2022-05-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20220510214335/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022537179905541. live.
13. Acheson. Daniel J.. MacDonald. Maryellen C.. April 2009. Twisting tongues and memories: Explorations of the relationship between language production and verbal working memory. Journal of Memory and Language. 60. 3. 329–350. 10.1016/j.jml.2008.12.002. 21165150. 0749-596X. 3001594.
14. Wainaina . Michael . Peek . Philip . Yankah . Kwesi . Tongue Twisters in East Africa . Encyclopedia of African Folklore . . 947-949.
15. Hanson. Vicki. 1991. Tongue-Twister Effects in the Silent Reading of Hearing and Deaf College Students. Journal of Memory and Language. 30. 3. 319–330. 10.1016/0749-596X(91)90039-M. Google Scholar. 2019-01-28. 2020-11-11. https://web.archive.org/web/20201111231646/http://www.haskins.yale.edu/sr/SR107/SR107_12.pdf. live.
16. Book: Roper, Jonathan. Alliteration in Culture. Springer. 2011. 9780230305878. 8.
17. Web site: Linguist List, Vol. 2 . Aristar . Anthony . Dry . Helen . 27 May 1991 . . 13 March 2010 . 4 July 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20100704061053/http://www.umich.edu/~archive/linguistics/linguist.list/volume.2/no.251-300 . live .
18. Web site: 15 Chinese Tongue Twisters. 6 September 2020. maayot. September 2020. 25 October 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201025155018/https://www.maayot.com/blog/15-interesting-chinese-tongue-twisters/. live.
19. Book: Nel, Philip . Philip Nel . Dr. Seuss: American Icon . . 2005 . 9780826417084 . . 27 . en.
20. Web site: BoJack Horseman is famous for being emotionally wrenching. But it's also ridiculously funny.. Vox. September 26, 2019. Caroline Framke. 14 September 2017. 21 September 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190921063628/https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/14/16296632/netflix-bojack-horseman-is-a-comedy. live.