Boffins devise world's HARDEST tongue-twister

Many of will have heard the tale of a lady who sells seashells on the sea shore. Now it's time for the unnamed beach trader to get a new job because MIT boffins have invented the world's toughest tongue teaser. Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel is mad about difficult rhymes, possibly because her own name doesn't exactly trip off the …

[julianh72]

But the real prize goes to ...

... anyone who can say "Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel" ten times in succession without doing themselves an injury.

[FartingHippo]

Re: But the real prize goes to ...

Presumably best friends with Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr and Miss Anne Uumellmahaye.

[BillG]

Re: But the real prize goes to ...

anyone who can say "Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel" ten times in succession without doing themselves an injury.

It's pronounced "Throat-Warbler Mangrove".

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't have a problem with it oddly.. not a patch on "The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick"

[Rich 2]

Quite agree

Quite agree - it's not really difficult at all. It doesn't make sense, but it's not difficult.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Quite agree

Totally agree. I tried and while first time through this "world's hardest" tongue twister gave a slight bit of difficulty, I was then able to rattle off 10 times quickly with no issue at all. That sixth sheik's sheep thing is so damned hard I've never been able to say it fast once, EVER, and never will. Hell, I've never been able to correctly say it slowly, not even REALLY slowly!

Perhaps there is some issue where different people have problems with different sounds repeating, and those of us who have no problem with the "pad kid" one but have problems with the "sheik" one are more susceptible to issues alliterating s's? All I know is that if I can do it easily, it isn't close to the world's hardest, or anywhere in the running.

This is like seeing the article, "world's hardest math problem devised" and solving it in 30 seconds.

[Matt 21]

Re: Quite agree

Not only is it not that difficult to say, it doesn't make any sense and so, in my opinion, fails as a tongue twister.

It's not even funny when it goes wrong, unlike "I'm not a pheasant plucker, I'm a pheasant plucker's son, I'm only plucking pheasants until the pheasant plucker comes".

[auburnman]

Re: Quite agree

I would have gone with "Bad kid poured cold pulled cod." That way it kind of makes sense, and the single 'b' could be expected to trip folk up on multiple repetitions. But I'm not a Wordologist at MIT so what do I know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Quite agree

Definitely not that hard. Try reading "The Fox in Socks" to your kids after a long day...blows Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel's attempt out of the water.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Quite agree

Same here: not hard to say and makes no sense.

[Alan Brown]

Re: Quite agree

or even "Fuzzy duck? Ducky Fuzz!"

[Nigel 11]

Pheasant plucker

That's definitely the funniest one. So many ways to go wrong, all rude.

[mrjobby]

Re: Quite agree

I'm so glad that it isn't just me who a) doesn't find it difficult and b) doesn't understand what the smeg it's supposed to mean!

[SuperTim]

Boffin?

I think her work is flawed if her only check was " some people gave up halfway through". Everyone here thinks this so-called tongue twister is far easier than the local classic "Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog's Dead"

[Velv]

Perhaps we need to send round the Leith Police...

[Curtis]

RE:"If anyone can say this 10 times quickly, they get a prize," she said.

OK, so where do I send a video and what's the prize?

[Khaptain]

Red lorry Yellow Lorry

See title, for me far more difficult.

[Adam 1]

Re: Red lorry Yellow Lorry

Irish wristwatch

[Michael Dunn]

Re: Red lorry Yellow Lorry @ Khaptain

Must say that when I was in Chiang Mai, the students had difficulty with "Red river, Yellow river."

Quite a few Chemistry students had difficulty with the concept of "red lead,"

[julianh72]

I'm not the pheasant plucker ...

... I'm the pheasant plucker's son

[Pete 2]

Re: I'm not the pheasant plucker ...

... and I'm only plucking pheasants

'til the pheasant plucker comes.

Yup, still gets my vote.

Although one of the later verses is, IMHO, more likely to trip you over:

I'm not the pheasant plucker

I'm the pheasant plucker's wife

Me and the pheasant plucker

have a pheasant plucking life.

I guess this rhyme didn't make the cut as the "downside" of getting it wrong wouldn't appeal to too many. Especially if a newsreader (ill-advisedly) tried it live on air.

Though, considering the number of people who are unable to pronounce "nuclear", I'd say it doesn't take much to be a tongue-twister, these days.

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: I'm not the pheasant plucker ...

I think the godbotherer on "Thought^H^H^H^H^H^H^HPlatitude of the Day" on Radio 4 gave it a go the other day...

[Flocke Kroes]

Re: I'm not the pheasant plucker ...

... I'm the pheasant plucker's mate,

and I am here plucking pheasants

'cause the pheasant plucker's late.

Any more and there will be nine pleasant pheasant pluckers presently plucking pheasants on a pleasant pheasant plucking day.

[Stu]

Re: I'm not the pheasant plucker ...

It's pronounced nucular -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoASZyihalc

[Michael Dunn]

Re: I'm not the pheasant plucker ... @ Pete 2

Nuclear - or as Homer Simpson says: "That's pronounced 'nukular.'"

[Piloti]

Assume "worlds hardest in English....."....

....becuase there are some devlish ticklers in other languages.

Try these out from our Saxon cohorts.

Im dichten Fichtendickicht picken die flinken Finken tüchtig.

Jauchzende Jubeljodeljauchzerjungen jubeln jauchzend Jubeljodler Jauchzende Jubeljodler jubeln jauchzende Jubeljodeljauchzerjungen.

Klitzekleine Kinder können keinen Kirschkern knacken. Keinen Kirschkern können klitzekleine Kinder knacken.

And my favourite :

Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid

[WinHatter]

Re: Assume "worlds hardest in English....."....

Eichhörnchen, German for squirrel is a tongue twister by itself.

[Miguel Candeias]

Re: Assume "worlds hardest in English....."....

I don't think I can even *read* the second one...

[Nigel 11]

Re: Assume "worlds hardest in English....."....

Google Translate also has trouble with the second. Well, more trouble:

In the dense spruce thickets pick the nimble finches efficient.

Jubeljodeljauchzerjungen exultant cheer jubilantly exultant jubilation jubilation yodel yodel exultant cheer Jubeljodeljauchzerjungen.

Tiny children can not cherry stone crack. None cherry stone can crack tiny children.

Red cabbage remains red cabbage and wedding dress wedding dress remains

[Anonymous Coward]

@Nigel11

In the dense spruce thickets pick the nimble finches efficient.

Whatever that was translated from MUST be the world's hardest, because even after it is translated into English it is a damn good tongue twister! Much harder than the "world's hardest" from the article, at least.

[Pete 47]

I wonder if there is a cultural element to this...

I used to work with a French chap who was relatively new to speaking English as a primary language and he could say any tongue-twister you threw at him perfectly without any difficulty.

I wonder if it's the way we learn our language naturally from birth that pre-disposes us to find combinations of phonetically similar words tricky?.

This guy was also a bit of a sportsman, football, rugby (played for the national under 21's or somesuch) etc and was quite proud of it so we thought joing our cricket team would deflate his gallic superiority a bit. He had none of that, took to it instantaneously like a pro and was soon our best batsman/bowler.

You'd hate him for it except for the fact that he was a top bloke as well....didn't even give us that pleasure the b*****d!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I wonder if there is a cultural element to this...

People from other parts of the world, with other ways of speaking are going to have problems with certain words or phrases and not others, in whatever language. Example springs to mind, three of my colleagues from the sub-continent, who each speak many languages, brilliantly I might add, simply cannot say 'Côte d'Ivoire'. Hearing them struggle, is I shamefully admit, quite amusing. I've not let on that 'Ivory Coast' is just as good.

[jonathanb]

Re: I wonder if there is a cultural element to this...

English people for example seem to be incapable of pronouncing the word "loch" correctly. No matter how many times they try, it comes out as "lock".

[Tromos]

No problems with 10 repeats

However, the best I've ever managed is 3 in a row for "The Leith Police dismisseth us".

[poopypants]

Always popular at the pub after a few

Mrs Puggy Wuggy has a square cut punt.

Not a punt cut square,

Just a square cut punt.

It's round in the stern and blunt in the front.

Mrs Puggy Wuggy has a square cut punt.

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: pick a pipe of pickled pepper

A pipe? I've never heard this before. When I were a lad it was a peck of pickled pepper that Peter Piper picked. Google appears to agree.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: pick a pipe of pickled pepper

Absolutely - a peck is a unit of volume (two gallons I think), whereas you wouldn't want to stuff any quantity of peppers in a pipe.

I'll cite my granddad rather than Google - a Devonshire farmer who routinely mentioned pecks and told me what one was.

Cheers

Jon

[PhilBuk]

Re: pick a pipe of pickled pepper

Easy - four pecks to the bushel. Wonder what my car's fuel consumption is in chains/peck?

Phil.

[Martin Budden]

Re: pick a pipe of pickled pepper

Wonder what my car's fuel consumption is in chains/peck?

Probably about 2e-39 square light years. Why?

[jake]

I never saw the point of this concept.

You can either speak the language, or you cannot.

English is a precise language, when used precisely.

[Dave 126]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

>You can either speak the language, or you cannot.

???

So what about people recovering from strokes? Children with a developmental difficulty in this regard? People who stammer or have a lisp? Hell, most people if you play their won speech back at the with a few milliseconds delay will find it near impossible to talk.

Tongue twisters can give an insight into the task of speaking, analogous to how optical illusions can give clues as too how we interpret visual information.

[Fogcat]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

"Hell, most people if you play their won speech back at the with a few milliseconds delay will find it near impossible to talk."

This is true, sometimes when Skype-ing if the user at the other end is using speakers rather a headset you hear your own voice coming back delayed. When that happens I can only get half way through sentences..

[Dave 126]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

>Hell, most people if you play their won speech back at the with a few milliseconds delay will find it near impossible to talk.

D'oh! Sorry people, I'm trying out a small Bluetooth keyboard... though more convenient for me, it is less convenient for anyone trying to read my words!

Still, despite my lack of precision, it would appear you can still grasp my meaning.

[Tanuki]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

"Hell, most people if you play their won speech back at the with a few milliseconds delay will find it near impossible to talk".

An ex-cow-orker was some years back paid quite a bit to develop a portable machine* which allowed just this delayed-playback effect; it was used to quantify whether people trying to claim compensation from the National Coal Board for noise-induced industrial deafness were faking it or not.

*This was in the late-1960s. Think open-reel tape-decks with calibrated, continuously variable capstan speeds.

[Stratman]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

Or he/she could have just bought a Watkins Super Shadow echo device.

Now, about this cow orking. Is it worth it?

[Tanuki]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

That wouldn't have provided a copy of each person's tests for assessment by the various audiologists [at minimum the Coal Board's one and the Mineworker's union's one] back at base though, would it?

[CADmonkey]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

English is precise but also playful. Resiliant (very) to mangling, still making sense in any order, almost.

It may have something to do with the fact that whilst the rest of Europe was enjoying the Rennaisance the Brits were in the sway of the Puritans who were taking all the pictures and nudey statues down. So we had Shakespere and Milton playing with words instead of Mick and Leo playing with their paints.

[Dr Paul Taylor]

muddled history

whilst the rest of Europe was enjoying the Rennaisance the Brits were in the sway of the Puritans ...

The Rennaisance was well out of nappies and on its way to school by the time of the Puritans. Might be a good idea to look at some dates.

[TRT]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

Precise? It's vague as anything and heavily dependent on context. And it's always changing... what's really picking my pepper at the moment is Argos (and now it's spreading to other retailers too) and their "Get up to half-price off"... GRAHHHHHH!!!! It makes me mad even typing it.

[Nigel 11]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept.

Meaningless strings of words, I agree. But can't you see that the "Pheasant plucker" is a minor masterpeice of something like wit? The moment you notice where you might go wrong, some perverse subsystem in your brain wants to go wrong. And there are so many ways to choose from!

[Martin Budden]

Re: I never saw the point of this concept. @jake

You can either speak the language, or you cannot.

English is a precise language, when used precisely.

I will say precisely this: if you can't think of anything useful to say, don't say anything.

[Chris Tierney]

Not Difficult and

She's a boffin?

[Fogcat]

Re: Not Difficult and

I heard her interviewed on the Today program on Radio 4 and as usual it seems a nice headline opportunity has obscured what she's actually doing. It is all related to combinations sounds, what type follows what and so on and it's aimed at look how ideas get vocalised, what can interfere with it and has applications for rehabilitation of stroke suffers and other speech problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but here's a serious(ish) question.

Is there an equivalent of the tongue twister in sign language?

[Dave 126]

Re: Sorry, but here's a serious(ish) question.

I don't know, but my guess would be yes... I would imagine that some shapes flow more easily from other shapes, just as some guitar chords flow from others more easily.

I'd like to hear from someone who actually knows, though!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry, but here's a serious(ish) question.

Wikipedia says...

The sign language equivalent of a tongue twister is called a finger-fumbler.[citation needed] According to Susan Fischer, the phrase Good blood, bad blood is a tongue-twister in English as well as a finger-fumbler in ASL.[4]

[John G Imrie]

Am I the only one ...

Who thought that the second paragraph in the article was the tongue twister?

[harpingon]

Peggy Babcock

Try saying

Peggy Babcock , Babcock Peggy

More than a couple of times quickly is impossible for me.

This was part of an ITV regional game show 'Razmatazz' in the North East in the 80s.

[AceRimmer]

Re: Peggy Babcock

Try saying

Jeremy Hunt culture secretary

Very quickly, 5 times in a row

[Jediben]

Re: Peggy Babcock

I usually jump straight to the 5th result, every time I see him!

[Efros]

I think this is definitely to do with what Americans find difficult to say compared to Brits. I too ran this through a few times and had no difficulty with it. Leith Police and Sheikh's sheep I find a lot more difficult.

[Dave 126]

Depends on how you pronounce Sheikh.... (Frank Zappa has pronounced it to rhyme with 'Shake', and also with 'Week')

[Irony Deficient]

sheikh

Dave, it probably came into awareness in English first with the “chic” pronunciation (e.g.The Sheik of Araby). The “shake” pronunciation is closer to the Arabic pronunciation, and was preferred in Zappa’s case for his Sheik Yerbouti pun.

[Dave 126]

Re: sheikh

And on the 'You Are What You Is' album, Zappa has

"I heard that some Sheikh

Bought New Jersey last week

And you suckers ain't gettin' nothing"

The use of words in poetry is actually one of the few tools historians have of estimating how words were pronounced in the past!

I know a rude joke about sheep shearing that only works in an Australian accent.

[Irony Deficient]

influenced by dialect?

Efros, I’ve wondered about that dialectal aspect as well. One simple tongue twister that trips up most people here is saying “toy boat” ten times in succession, as rapidly as possible. Over here, it almost invariably morphs into “toy boyt” before the end, and I’ve wondered whether that would tend to happen with native speakers of other English dialects.

[jonathanb]

Re: influenced by dialect?

I have no problem at all saying "toy boat" in a Scottish accent, but it is much more difficult in a Home Counties accent.

[Tanuki]

I was always told that the world's hardest tongue-twister was in the Xhosa language, and when translated came out as "The Skunk rolled down and ruptured its larynx"

See: http://www.alphadictionary.com/fun/tongue-twisters/isixhosa_tongue_twisters.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me some is actually paying her to produce this sort of tripe?

If so, that person need to be highlighted, scorned and disciplined.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never heard of speech therapists? Not everyone has need of their services, just as most people don't need a physiotherapist.

[Ginolard]

One for the kids

I play a Numberjacks board game with my kids sometimes and they have these pieces called Buddy Blocks.

Some of them are blue.

Blue Buddy Blocks.

I take far too much juvenile pleasure hearing my 4 year old say "Blue Bluddy Blocks!"

[Thunderbird 2]

Not a tongue twister per se, but try saying it fast repeatedly

Whale Oil Beef Hooked

[TRT]

Cooking fat?

[HippyFreetard]

My gran taught me the Siamese National Anthem when I was little.

It goes "Awa ta-Na Siam" to the tune of "God Save the Queen"

Also, in school we wrote 4Q on every wall. Imagine the head teacher (thick welsh accent) "Who's been writing 4Q on the walls? What's 4Q supposed to mean?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Syntax.

Doesn't it have to work as a sentence to count?

[Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face]

Dr Seuss said it best...

Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew. While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew. Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze. Freezy trees made these trees' cheese freeze. That's what made these three free fleas sneeze.

[Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face]

Re: Dr Seuss said it best...

When tweetle beetles fight,

it's called a tweetle beetle battle.

And when they battle in a puddle,

it's a tweetle beetle puddle battle...

(it goes on..)

[Dave 126]

Re: Dr Seuss said it best...

I've always liked the song 'Labio Dental Fricative' by the Bonzo Dog Band:

"Cannibal chiefs chew Camembert cheese

'cause chewing keeps 'em cheeky

Big Fat Fred sticks fur to his head

'cause he thinks fur makes him freaky

Benjamin Bland and his Bugle Band blow the blues bi-weekly

How many pies can a porpoise poise on purpose if she pleases?"

But any song with the lyric "Back at the boozer" and stunt guitar by Eric Clapton is good by me!

[Tyson Key]

Re: Dr Seuss said it best...

I didn't have a problem with the one from the article - but that Seuss one was a pain in the arse to read, as an English/Japanese bilingual who has a weird "mostly-Received Pronunciation" accent in English, but has difficulty in pronouncing certain words beginning with the consonant cluster "thr" (especially "three").

"Thoroughly" is also one of those weird words that trips me up.

[Huw D]

Thanks for bringing this back into my head...

Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously. For nobody's toeses are posies of roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Thanks for bringing this back into my head...

Being the sad bugger I am (was), as a teenager I thoroughly leaned that one, and can still rattle it off at high speed with not the slightest hesitation.

I also learned a shopping list:

Cheap, chilled chives, corn cob, crisp crunchy carrots, chunky chutney, chump chops and chips.

It's the breaks in the rhythm that gets people.

[Longrod_von_Hugendong]

I think the real wonder here is...

She gets paid for this sh1t, think i am in the wrong job.

[Dalek Dave]

Sue's Souix Shoes Shone in the Sunshine Shop

[Werner McGoole]

Practice makes perfect

Anyone who plays a musical instrument will know there is an analogous musical problem. Some musical phrases can be especially hard to play for some reason - maybe because the moves are awkward or maybe because they're just unlike anything else you've played before.

Anyway, you can't just label them hard and not play them. The solution is practice. Play them over and over as slowly as you need and eventually you'll find they come naturally. It can sometimes take a while, though.

The same is true of tongue-twisters. Repeat them over and over sufficiently slowly to get them right each time and after a few days (on and off) you'll find they become quite easy. Try it...

[Martin Budden]

Re: Practice makes perfect

Ain't the cerebellum wonderful!

[envmod]

say ten times quickly

piece of piss.

where's my prize?

[Sandpit]

Unique New York

I prefer the simple phrases rather than "recite half the bible ten times quickly" efforts.

[SirDigalot]

not a tongue twister

I said it in my native british no problem, then converted to American and it was still piss easy

maybe I was still thinking british like.

my wife and MIL used to spoonerise certain things so much it sounded wrong when they said the right

the words bird poop ( bood pirp)

and head of lettuce (lead of hettuce) were the normal offenders

i could never say the sheik one, and when i was younger had a big problem with the lorry one because i never pronounced my R's correctly (wed lowwy yellow lowwy ) which sounds impossibly cute for a 3 year old and f*cking retarded as an adult so I corrected it, and the small stammer i used to have which is why i tend not to have a large issue with many tongue twisters i think, (except the afore mentioned sheik dude) the stammer really only comes back into play when i am overly exhausted which generally leads me to freeze up rather then struggle with the words ( probably all in my head a good neurosis whiles away the hours when i am alone !)

[Michael Dunn]

Re: not a tongue twister @ Sir Digalot

Ah! Spoonerisms! The Thais mentally carry on spoonerising everything you say to them, so you have to be quite careful when speaking to avoid certain combinations of words and there are actually rules laid down for writing poetry which stipulate sets of words which cannot be used in combination.

You cannot say "The teacher is ill." you have to phrase it as "The teacher is not well." The first form will automatically be spoonerised into "crab's penis."

There are some nice ones in English, however. "After our hymn: 'The shoving leopard' a meeting will be halled in the hell below the Church."

[Martin Budden]

Re: not a tongue twister @ Sir Digalot

Three cheers for our queer old dean!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found the toughest tongue-twister to be 'strange strategic statistics'

[Darryl]

Just wondering

While reading the original and speaking it to myself (quietly - I'm at work and people here think I'm halfway off my rocker already) and then doing the same with all of the examples in the comments, something occurred to me... These are all a LOT easier to say and repeat when you're looking at the words. When I try to say them from memory, I get screwed up every time, but I can blast through them by just reading them aloud.

Anyone else find this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although not entirely related humour, for some reason this bought memories of a cryptic puzzle someone asked me long ago: put together a grammatical sentence that makes sense with 7 consecutive instances of the word "and".

.

.

.

.

Answer: describing the sequence "and and and", you could say "There is a space between and and and, and and and and".

[OWCFrank]

Immortal tale of the flautist and his two pupils

A tutor who tooted the flute,

tried to tutor two tooters to toot.

Said the two to the tooter, is it easier to toot?

Or to tutor two tooters to toot?

[Myself-NZ]

Swap pheasants with figs

If you want more rudeness, doing the twister as a fig plucker etc tends to be funnier. (at least to me it does)

[Laie Techie]

A Flea and a Fly

A flea and a fly in the flue

Said, My gosh, what shall we do?

Let's flee, said the fly.

Let's fly, said the flea.

So they flew

through a flaw in the flue.

[Andrew Jones 2]

Didn't have a problem with the tounge twister in the article, can quite easily cope with "I'm not a pheasant plucker" at speeds fast enough that the words ALMOST become unintelligible but "The Leith Police" I have a problem saying slowly never mind speeding it up, my brain tries to correct "dismisseth" to "dismisses" by the second go around. And of course - the lorrys very quickly turn into lollys of either colour.

EDIT: Was unaware of the other verses for the Pheasant Plucker though - so will check those out.

[Blubster]

Pheasant Plucker?

Ha! I spit on it.

Try this

Old Mrs. Hunt had a rough cut punt

Not a punt cut rough

But a rough cut punt.