We cash tax checks.
Sister Susie’s sewing shirts for soldiers—
Such skill at sewing shirts our shy young sister Susie shows!
Some soldiers send epistles saying they’d sooner sleep on thistles
Than the saucy, starched-up shirts for soldiers sister Susie sews!
Unique New York,
Unique New York,
Unique New York.
You know you need unique New York.
The sixth sheik’s sthixt sheesh ish shick.
Ummmm. I have one but I can’t post it here unless the thread is moved to the Pit. It doesn’t have any bad words in it till you make a mistake, though… 
Come t’think of it I have thousands. What have I been doing with my life? I’m a grown man.
[sub]Well, okay, not thousands. At least four, though.
I’m not a pheasant plucker,
I’m a pheasant plucker’s son.
I’m only plucking pheasants
Till the pheasant plucker comes.
That the one you had in mind, Ross? I think it’s safe enough here in MPSIMS.
There are plenty more of these things here.
How about one from zee French:
“Y a-t-il un chasseur sachant chasser sans chiens?”
Translation: Is there a wise hunter hunting without dogs.
The French /ch/ sounds like the English /sh/ and the first three syllables in simple phoentics would be: “EEE a TEEL”
Damn you Beer for beating me to it!
But for the whole (and a bit harder IMO) version:
“She stood on her balcony, inexplicably mimicking his hiccuping and amicably beckoning him in”
BTW - does anybody know exactly which dirty words I was supposed to be saying when pinching my tongue and saying “I was born on an apple ship?”
Per Willam Poundstone in his book “The Ultimate”, the toughest tongue twister is:
The Leith police dismisseth us.
(out of thirty attempts per person, this one was only said correctly 3% of the time)
He may be right about it being the hardest, 'cause I can’t say “dismisseth” without the rest of the sentence.
Other nominees I liked are:
The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.
Twixt six thick thumbs stick six thick sticks
The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick
(the runner up: had a 30% success rate)
My favorite, however, isn’t in the Poundstone book, and isn’t particularly hard, but it’s fun to say (plus it’s Science Fiction related…brownie points to whoever gets why)
Amidst the mists and frozen frosts, he thrusts his fists against the posts, yet still insists he sees the ghosts
Fabulous Furious Fenris
Theopholus Thistle,
(the successful thistle-sifter)
successfully sifted
three thousand thistles
through the thick of his thumb.
Rubber baby buggy bumpers
Rubber baby buggy bumpers
Rubber baby buggy bumpers
And more brownie points to anyone who can identify the author and booktitle from whence came this masterpiece:
Fenris, who wishes he could write half as well.
Back when Shell were selling themselves off there was “she sells Shell shares on the sea shore”…
More difficult are:
red lorry yellow lorry red lorry yellow lorry red lorry yellow lorry
And (said as quickly as you can… go on, try it, ause others in the same room)…
spectroscopy spectroscopy spectroscopy
from the Greg Benson book Timescape (nothing to do with the Jeff Daniels film (I keep watching Jeff Daniels films because I get him confused with Jeff Bridges)).
Here’s a good Irish one: Seacht sicín ina seasamh sna sneachta lá sioctha.
It translates to “seven chickens standing in the snow on a freezing cold day” and a rough pronunciation is “shocked shickeen in a shasoo sna shnockta la shocka”.
Fenris, that’s from Stephen King’s It, of course! (At least in the movie version.)
My favorite: “Somebody shot the city sherrif” (say it really fast.)
Or a simple yet hard one: “Toyboat”
KJ, half a brownie point: You’re right, King used it, but it was a crucial plot element in an earlier book. I believe King referenced the earlier book in IT.
The question’s still open.
(I llked the “Sherriff” one, by the way)
Fenris
Two witches had two watches
Which witch would watch which watch?
Which watch would watch which witch?
- Hero’s Quest: So You Want to be a Hero (aka Quest for Glory)
How about…
I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit.
Upon the slitted sheet I sit.
Peggy Babcock.
John Ciardi says it’s the hardest name to say in the English language. Try it five times fast.
I learned this as “She stood on the balcony inimitably mimicking him hiccupping while amicably welcoming him in”
Where in the heck did it come from anyways?
How about a Czech one- “Strc prst krc” (lacking the diacriticals, sorry) no vowels and it means to “stick your finger through your throat”
-Tcat