A Guide To Learn English Language

Tongue twister is a phrase, sen­tence or a rhyme which is dif­fi­cult to speak. The dif­fi­culty is more pro­nounced when the twister is repeat­edly and quickly spo­ken. We will look at what it is that makes it a cool take.

Let’s start with a sim­ple one:
“Whis­tle for the this­tle sifter”

Did that get you going? Cer­tainly the twisters vary in their dif­fi­culty leagues. The hard­est tongue-twister accord­ing to Gui­ness book of world records is “The sixth sick sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick”. But a few argue that the hard­est one is “The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea suf­ficeth us”

To appre­ci­ate the beauty of a twister you need to speak it loudly and quickly. Most of the times it proves to be com­i­cal error of sorts due to the sim­i­lar pho­net­ics of the words.
To appre­ci­ate a twister, a basic under­stand­ing of allit­er­a­tion and rhyme will help immensely.

Allit­er­a­tion and Rhyme:

Allit­er­a­tion is a lit­er­ary device con­sti­tut­ing same con­so­nant sound at the begin­ning of two or more words in close suc­ces­sion. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pick­led pep­pers…” Here the allit­er­a­tion is with respect to the let­ter P. Allit­er­a­tion is mainly used in poetry to cre­ate the effect with word play. But due care is exer­cised; its acci­den­tal usage often mars the beauty of writ­ing. A rhyme is a rep­e­ti­tion of sim­i­lar sound­ing words. This tech­nique is mostly used in songs. Both the allit­er­a­tion and rhyme derives on repet­i­tive play of sounds or words.

A tongue twister is gen­er­ally designed in such a way that the reader is expected to stum­ble while pro­nounc­ing. Hence, tongue twisters can prove to be a very good medium for teach­ing elo­cu­tion. More­over, it also lays empha­sis on pro­nun­ci­a­tion, so it effec­tively can also reduce speech defects.

Some com­mon tongue twisters:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pick­led pep­pers.
A peck of pick­led pep­pers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pick­led pep­pers,
Where’s the peck of pick­led pep­pers Peter Piper picked?

I saw Susie sit­ting in a shoe shine shop.
Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.

How many boards
Could the Mon­gols hoard
If the Mon­gol hordes got bored?
from the comic Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Waterson

How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?

Send toast to ten tense stout saints’ ten tall tents.
by Ray­mond Weisling

Denise sees the fleece,
Denise sees the fleas.
At least Denise could sneeze
and feed and freeze the fleas.

Coy knows pseudonoise codes.
by Pierre Abbat

Sheena leads, Sheila needs.

The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne through­out Thursday.

Some­thing in a thirty-acre ther­mal thicket of thorns and this­tles thumped and thun­dered threat­en­ing the three-D thoughts of Matthew the thug — although, the­atri­cally, it was only the thirteen-thousand this­tles and thorns through the under­neath of his thigh that the thirty year old thug thought of that morn­ing.
by Meaghan Desbiens

Can you can a can as a can­ner can can a can?