Do you like rubber baby buggy bumpers? Or big black bug’s blood?

Tongue twisters are fun, but they’re also a serious area of study. MIT researchers think they may have found the world’s toughest tongue twister. Why are tongue twisters hard to say? And what are they like in other languages?

Linguist Daniel Midgley sells sea shells by the seashore on this episode of Talk the Talk.


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149: Tongue Twisters

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Promo

Promo with James Hall, 2014-02-04: Tongue

Show notes

MIT researchers name the toughest tongue twister they’ve found
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/12/05/mit-tongue-twister-trickiest-to-say/

More on the neurolinguistics of it all
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-12-tongues-speech-secrets.html

The relevant MetaFilter thread is fun.
http://www.metafilter.com/134574/Tongue-twister

Tongue twisters in many different languages
http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/

Theophilus Thistle is an oldie but goodie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_Thistle