# Why are tongue twisters hard?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-tongue-twisters-hard/513670>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 13, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-tongue-twisters-hard/513670 "2009-10-13T17:25:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Stana\_Claus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stana_claus/32/13874_2.png) [@Stana\_Claus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stana_Claus)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-tongue-twisters-hard/513670/21 "2009-10-18T01:24:33Z")

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How about: A skunk sat on a stump. The stump thought the skunk stunk, but the skunk thought the stump stunk.

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**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-tongue-twisters-hard/513670/22 "2009-10-18T17:46:53Z")

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> [@outlierrn](#):
>
> An english as a second language friend of mine said ‘she still steals steel.’ Drove him batshit crazy. I just rattled it off and he gave me that ‘I hate you’ look.

Ugh, I remember one like that from Japanese class. The word translates as, “It was not hot,” or something like that. Romanized, it goes something like, “Attakakunakatta”. The teachers laughed at us a lot as we tried to stutter it out.

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**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\
**Post date:** [October 18, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-tongue-twisters-hard/513670/23 "2009-10-18T22:51:48Z")

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**I don’t like the bottom parts of Pop Tarts, I like the top parts of Pop Tarts.**

I think “sixth” is actually quite hard to say all on its own, so no wonder the “Sixth sick sheikh. . .” thing is hard!

Another one, like “toy boat,” that is easy enough to say once, but gets hard if you say it quickly and repeatedly, is “red leather, yellow leather.”

I wonder if the tongue twister phenomenon is related to the reversing of letters during hasty typing, producing things such as **teh** (I do this all the time, more often than I type it correctly, and have to have my word processor set to auto correct it.)

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