Long story short, the Ivyclan was having fun with tongue twisters last night. I remembered one I had read as the Hardest Tongue Twister in the English language, according to the Guinness Book of World Records mumble mumble years ago:
The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep is sick.
The kids had a blast trying to say that three times fast. I don’t think there is any way to say that quickly and accurately in the English language. I don’t think the tongue can move that fast back and forth from the front of the mouth to the back to make the sounds.
What are your tough tongue twisters? What are tough ones in other languages? I also like rubber baby buggy bumpers. All those “b” sounds are fun to make.
In William Poundstone’s book The Ultimate he concludes that the toughest tongue twister is “The seething sea ceaseth, and thus, the seething sea sufficeth us.”
Second place I believe was “The Leith police dismisseth us.”
Old Mother Rutter-Putter’s rough-cut punt
Not a punt cut rough, but a rough-cut punt
Hollow in the middle and shaggy in the front
Old Mother Rutter-Putter’s rough-cut punt
Try doing that three times fast without violating FCC regs!
Or:
I am not a fig plucker,
Nor a fig plucker’s son,
But I will pluck figs
Until the fig plucker comes
I remember reading in an approximately-1975 edition of the Guinness Book that the toughest tongue twister in any language is the Czech Strč prst skrz krk, the first entry on this page.
As for English, try “white right-winger” and “white trash waitress”.
Just after Kizarvexilla was born, my mother, who had always seemed pretty laid back, started showing symptoms of being the overprotective grandma from hell. One day she informed me (in that I’m very worried tone) that the way Kizarvexilla was sucking on her bottle pointed to the future development of speech impediments. And since my (now ex-) wife speaks with a slight lisp and has a rather magnificent overbite, well, Q.E.D.
She started on this long before Kizarvexilla had even begun to make vocalizing sounds, and kept it up all throughout the babbling stage. “That child needs speech therapy! She’s going to get teased!” Yeah, whatever. :rolleyes:
So one day I had a revelation. My ex told me how she had used tongue twisters as a method for minimizing her lisp, and it had worked extremely well. The only time I ever remember it being a problem for her was during a play, when she had to use the word “aestheticism” repeatedly. So I immediately began teaching Kizarvexilla tongue twisters.
The ones I used were mostly variations on ones already mentioned. Our favorite was one from the Danny Kaye song “Tongue Twisters”:
One Kizarvexilla was able to get through that one (and at a pretty good clip, I might add), I had her say it in front of my mother.
I haven’t heard one word about the need for speech therapy ever since.
Also, anyone who is familiar with the canon of Gilbert & Sullivan operas will know this one by heart:
