Tongue-twisters

25 January 2010

I was thinking about tongue-twisters the other day. I think the most effective ones are two or three words long. Also, there are a lot of tricky two-word phrases—it’s not just a small few that are hard to say.

I think these are two of the hardest:

  • Unique New York
  • Greek grapes

And here are a few of my own. Note that in the last one the two words don’t have many sounds in common, but the phrase is still pretty difficult to say five times fast.

  • Perfect purple
  • iPod/iPhone earbuds
  • Kepler’s cronies

(And that second one just might be appropriate in light of Wednesday’s event!)

Posted in Humour, Language |

3 responses to this entry

  1. Amy wrote:
    25 January 2010

    How about ‘Charlotte shuns sunshine; Sarah shuns sleet’? I would consider that the second hardest to say (the first being ‘unique New York’).

  2. Micah John wrote:
    25 January 2010

    Yes, and actually each of the two clauses in that one is also quite hard. I hadn’t come across that one before.

  3. Micah John wrote:
    27 January 2010

    Today I actually said ‘unique New York’ five times fast!

    Also, maybe I should revise the Apple-themed tongue-twister to ‘iPhone iPod iPad earbuds’.

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