Tongue-twister

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A tongue-twister is a phrase in any language that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly. Tongue-twisters can rely on similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., s [s] and sh [ʃ]), unfamiliar constructs in loan-words or other features of the language.

Betty Botter (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- An example of a tongue-twister
- Problems listening to the file? See media help.

Many tongue-twisters use a combination of alliteration and rhyme. They have two or three sequences of sounds, then the same sequences of sounds with some sounds exchanged. For example, She sells sea shells on the sea shore. The shells that she sells are sea shells I'm sure. (or a variation: She sells sea shells on a sea shore, so the shells she sells are sure sea shore shells).

Some tongue-twisters are short words or phrases, which become tongue-twisters when repeated rapidly (often expressed as "Say this ten times fast!"). Examples include "toy boat" and "Peggy Babcock". "Big whip" is another that is virtually impossible to say quickly, due to the lip movement required between the "g" and "wh" sounds.

The hardest tongue-twister in the English language is supposedly The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick.^{[citation needed]} An even longer version of this is The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick so six slick sheiks sold six sick sheep six silk sheets.

William Poundstone claims that the hardest English tongue twister is "The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us."^[1]

Some tongue-twisters are specifically designed to cause the inadvertent pronunciation of a swearword if the speaker stumbles verbally (see spoonerism). An example in Polish is ząb, zupa zębowa, dąb, zupa dębowa (a tooth, tooth soup, an oak, oak soup). The word dąb forces an unsuspecting victim to further utter dupa dębowa (oak arse).

An English example of this sort:

I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's mate,
And I'm only plucking pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's late.
I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's son,
And I'm only plucking pheasants till the pheasant pluckers come.

Another example:

I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit, upon the slitted sheet I sit.

Yet another example:

Shut the shutters and sit in the shop.

Yet another example:

Shiny seeds shine my world

Another English tongue twister:

Betty Botter bought some butter, "But", she said "this butter's bitter, If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter! But a bit of better butter will make my batter better!". So she bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter, and she put it in her batter and her batter was not bitter! So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.

And another:

Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter, in sifting thousands of unsifted thistles, thrust thrice three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.

A slightly shorter one:

Red Leather. Yellow Leather.

This one won grand prize in a contest in Games Magazine in 1979:

Shep Schwab shopped at Schwab's Schnapps shop;
One shot of Scott's Schnapps stopped Schwab's watch.

And a well-known short English one:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Some foreign loanwords contain unfamiliar constructs, which are used in tongue-twisters. For example, Finnish strutsin perhe (the family of an ostrich) has the consonant cluster str, whereas such consonant clusters do not occur in native Finnish words. Repeated, this might be pronounced as strutsin perse (ostrich's arse).

Other features of language can make for tongue-twisters; for instance, the Czech "strč prst skrz krk" (stick a finger through the throat) relies on the absence of vowels, although syllabic r is a normal Czech sound.

Something that might be regarded as a type of tongue-twister is a shibboleth, that is, a phrase in a language that is difficult for someone who is not a native speaker of that language to say. An example is Georgian baqaqi ts'qalshi qiqinebs (a frog croaks in the water), in which “q” is a sort of gulping sound.

There are as many tongue twisters as there are languages. One Japanese twister reads "Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu, Busu Basu Gaido" meaning "Bus Gas Explosion, Ugly Bus Guide." Another is "Tonari No Kyaku Wa Yoku Kaki Kuu Kyaku Da", meaning "The customer next to me eats a lot of persimmons (or oysters)"

Tongue Twisters are also common depending on dialect. In Scouse, the dialect of the English city of Liverpool, it is common to say "They do, though, don't they, though". In Scouse this is easy as all of the diagraphs 'th' are pronounced as a 'd', but saying it quickly in Standard RP can be very difficult.

The sign language equivalent of a tongue twister is called a finger fumbler. According to Susan Fischer [1], the phrase "Good blood, bad blood" is a tongue-twister in English as well as a finger-fumbler in ASL.