(Oops, I’m sorry, sherrif = sheriff)
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
In Latin that would be :
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
French:
Combien de bois est-ce qu’une marmotte d’Amérique jetterait si une marmotte d’Amérique pourrait jeter le bois?
German:
Wieviel Holz würde ein Waldmurmeltier einspannen, wenn ein Waldmurmeltier Holz einspannen könnte?
Portuguese:
Quanto madeira uma marmota lançaria se uma marmota poderia lançar a madeira?
Italian:
Quanto legno nel mandrino una marmotta nordamericana bloccherebbe se una marmotta nordamericana potesse bloccare il legno nel mandrino?
Spanish:
Cuánto madera una marmota arrojaría si una marmota podría arrojar la madera?
(Babel Fish is [i/]SO* cool!)
“I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.”-- Calvin and Hobbes
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The oddest tongue-twister I’ve ever encountered is the following:
“Red leather, yellow leather.”
Try it five times fast. The odd thing about it is that your mouth learns it, somehow…once you get it down pat (and you do, after the fifth or sixth try), you can always get it out properly. But no one can do it right the first few times.
Are there any others like this?
Uke
A la Steve Martin in “The Jerk”:
I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit and on the slitted sheet I sit.
Therealbubba
Some other winners from * Games: *
Cinnamon Synonym
Ripe white wheat reapers reap white wheat right!
Brock Blake’s black bike’s back brake bracket block broke!
Salvaging yet another thread from the pruning-room floor.
::bump::
An excellent place to stick a tongue-twister I just made up. Try saying thissix times real fast:
“Do you do your doo doo duty daily, dude?”
I was in the Gilbert & Sullivan society at the U of Mich, and since G&S requires great diction, the vocal warmups always included all sorts of heinous tongue-twisters. The one that sticks in my mind was “If I can’t have a proper cup of coffee in a proper copper coffeepot I’ll have a cup of tea!” (And there were a whole bunch of sentences leading up to it, but I can’t remember all of them.)
And of course there are all sorts of tongue-twisters in Gilbert’s lyrics:
“They’re a ravenous horde, and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations…”
or
“In your shirt and your socks, the black silk with gold clocks…”
And those are only from one song…
The Seven Dirty Words, all said fast. Only a few can do it.
I am a sheet slitter, I slit sheets, the best damn sheet slitter that ever slit a sheet.
The skunk sat on a stump,
The skunk thunk the stump stunk
and the stump thunk the skunk stunk.
Can’t believe nobody’s mentioned this old gem:
I’m not a pheasant plucker,
I’m a pheasant plucker’s son.
I’m only plucking pheasants
Till the pheasant plucker comes.
Ahem…
The Leith police dismisseth us.
The Leith police dismisseth us.
The Leith police dismisseth us.
The Leith police dismisseth us.
The Leith police dismisseth us.
The Leith police dismisseth us.
Cant believe no one has mentioned this either.
It’s a classic and best remembered from
the I Love Lucy Show.
Repeat 5 times:
Rubber baby buggy bumper
“Rural route”…I have big time trouble with that.
Two witches had two watches
Which witch would watch which watch?
Which watch would watch which witch?
Or is that too witchy-watchy for you?
You know New York
You need New York
You know you need unique New York
A bitter biting bittern bit a better biting bittern and the bitter biting bittern bit the better biter back. Said the bitter biting bittern to the better biting bittern “I’m a bitter biting bittern bitten back”.
“The big black bug bled black blood.”
The only tonguetwister I can say properly is the Betty Botter butter-buying one LauraRae said.
Anything that depends upon a predominance of esses is the bane of my existence, because I lisp, and I end up spluttering. Suffering succotash. “She sells seashells” especially. And “he thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghost” – GAH! I had to try to say that every day when I was in speech therapy as a little kid. It was torment. See, I can say all those words passably well in daily speech, but all in a row? Eep!
I used to know a French one that had somethign to do with a furry green worm on a grene glass. (Le vair vert vers la verre vert or something.) I forget it now, though. I was small at the time; my Quebecois great-grandmother taught it to me.
I know a French one:
Un chasseur sachant chasser, sait chasser sans son chien.
anenquiringmind,
That would be…
Rugger baaggy buggy bunkers
I believe 