Tongue twisters

117 words · about 47 seconds

If a cyclist cycles another cyclist's cycle, does the cycling cyclist cycle the borrowed cycle better than the cyclist who bought the cycle? Or does the better cycle make the cycling cyclist cycle so cleverly that every cyclist cycling nearby wants the cycle the first cyclist cycled? And if the cyclist who owns the cycle cycles the cycle the other cyclist cycled, does either cyclist cycle the cycle the way the cycle was cycled before either cyclist cycled it at all? The cyclists cannot say. One cyclist claims the cycle cycles itself. The other cyclist, who cycles more, says every cycle cycles differently for every cyclist who cycles it. Ask a third cyclist and the cycle continues.

109 words · about 44 seconds

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, but the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked was packed beside a proper copper coffee pot belonging to a particularly pompous producer. If a peck of pickled peppers popped past a proper copper coffee pot, and the pompous producer picked the peppers up, would the producer put the peppers back properly, or would the pickled peppers pass the copper pot permanently? Perhaps the peppers prefer the pot. Perhaps the pot prefers the peppers. The producer, predictably, prefers neither, and proposes packing both parcels apart. Practise it plainly, practise it promptly, practise it repeatedly, and probably, plausibly, painlessly, you will pass.

106 words · about 42 seconds

Betty Botter bought a bit of butter, but the bit of butter Betty Botter bought was bitter. So Betty Botter bought a better bit of butter to make the bitter butter better. But the better butter Betty Botter bought was bitterer than the bitter butter Betty Botter bought before. Better butter, bitter butter, Betty Botter's batter. If Betty Botter's better butter makes the bitter batter better, but the better butter bought by Betty Botter is the bitterest butter anybody bought all week, whose butter is the better butter, whose batter is the bitterest batter, and who is going to eat the bitter batter Betty Botter baked?

97 words · about 39 seconds

She sells seashells by the seashore, and the shells she sells are surely seashells, so if she sells shells on the seashore the shells she sells are seashore shells. She sells sixty shells for a shilling, she says, so she should sell six hundred shells for ten. Shall she sell the smaller shells separately, or should she sell the shells she shelved in sets? The shore is short of shells this season, she says, so she sells the shells she saved, and the shells she saved she sells the slowest, since selling saved shells surely shortens summer.

99 words · about 40 seconds

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. But if the wood a woodchuck chucked was wood a wetter woodchuck would not touch, would the woodchuck chuck the wood the wetter woodchuck would not chuck, or would the woodchuck chuck the wood another woodchuck chucked? Wood chucked well is wood chucked once. Wood chucked twice is wood a woodchuck would rather not have chucked at all, which is what the woodchuck would tell you, if woodchucks talked.

99 words · about 40 seconds

Which witch watched which watch, and which watch did the watching witch wish she had washed? The witch which watched the wristwatch wished the wristwatch worked, but the wristwatch the watching witch wore was worn. Whether the weather is warm or whether the weather is worse, the watching witch will wear whichever wristwatch works. Which wristwatch is a Swiss wristwatch? Whichever wristwatch the witch who watches wristwatches wears. If one witch washes one watch, and one watch washes one witch, which one was washed, which one was watching, and who was winding the wristwatch while the washing went on?

116 words · about 46 seconds

Six strict speech specialists structured sixty sophisticated speaking scripts, subtly switching stressed syllables so that steady students stumbled slightly. Such scripts seemed simple, yet several speakers stalled, sighed, and started again. Should serious speakers surrender, or should they simply slow, steady themselves, and speak surely? Sensible speakers select shorter sections, shape each sound separately, and stay settled. Some shout. Some whisper. Some swallow whole syllables and hope nobody noticed. The sixth script is the shortest, the sixteenth is the sharpest, and the sixtieth has stopped sixty-six successive specialists since somebody senselessly submitted it. So say it softly, say it swiftly, say it seven successive times, and see whether steady speech survives sixty seconds of sustained strain.

112 words · about 45 seconds

The thirty-three thoughtful thieves thought throughout Thursday that they had thoroughly thwarted the thirsty thatcher's thin brother. Those three, though, thought otherwise: they threw three thousand thimbles through the thickest thatch, then thanked them for it. This, that, these, those, there, their, they're. Think through them. Then think them through again. Thirty thirsty thinkers threw thirteen thick things through thin threads on Thursday, and by Thursday the thirtieth they had thought themselves thoroughly through. The truth is that the teeth are doing the thinking here and the tongue is merely following, so the moment the tongue thinks first, the whole thing falls through, and the thinker is left with nothing but breath.

107 words · about 43 seconds

Antidisestablishmentarianism sounds ambitious until incomprehensibility interrupts, and then pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis arrives uninvited beside floccinaucinihilipilification. Most speakers pause, panic, and lose their place entirely. Try honorificabilitudinitatibus without hesitating, then sesquipedalianism, then counterrevolutionaries, then uncharacteristically, then incontrovertibility, and finally supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, which everybody believes they can already say. Say each one cleanly. Say each one slowly. Then say every one of them again, faster, without stopping, without stumbling, and without pretending that the short words in between were ever the difficult part. The difficult part is that your mouth has to plan four syllables ahead while your eyes are already three words behind, and nobody has ever won that argument gracefully.

98 words · about 39 seconds

Really rural jurors rarely relish truly rural juries, and the rural juror who rarely rules will rarely rule reliably. Roll a real red lorry through a rolling rural alley, then roll a yellow lorry right along the rail. Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, rarely rolling, largely lurching left. The lorry driver clearly lacked a clearly labelled lorry, so the lorry lurched, the label peeled, and literally nobody could reliably tell the red lorry from the yellow lorry the rural juror rarely rode in. Really, truly, rurally, the rural juror ruled the rolling lorry largely irrelevant.

100 words · about 40 seconds

Shane chased seven cheerful chess champions through a chilly charity shop, while Cheryl shared shredded cheese with shy children chewing charred chips. Should Shane share, or should Cheryl chase? The chess champions chose to charge the cheaper shelf, chattering cheerfully, chucking chess pieces as they charged. Choose a chair, Cheryl shouted, and check which cheese is which. Shane chose the chair Cheryl had chosen, which Cheryl thought was cheating, so Cheryl chose Shane's chair, chewed the cheese Shane had shredded, and shoved the shredded cheese she should not have chewed back onto the shelf she should not have shopped from.

98 words · about 39 seconds

Strong strangers strolled straight past the strict street stalls, stacking stripped strips of stretched string. The strongest stranger stressed that strict street stalls stock strange stuff, and stranger still, the stalls stock the strangest stuff strictly on Sundays. Struggle, strain, stretch, stride, strike, stroll, strip, strap, straw, stream. Say the strings of strident sounds strictly in order, and stop at the strangest. A stranger struck a stubborn strut, the strut stayed stuck, and the strong stranger struggled, strained, and eventually strolled straight past the stubborn strut he had struck, straightening his stripped strips of string as he strode.

96 words · about 38 seconds

Five fretful vipers ventured further, favouring the very valley five feverish foxes had vacated first. If a fretful viper favours a valley a fox has vacated, and the fox refuses to leave, does the viper venture further, or does the fox finally forfeit? Fervent voices vowed to verify, then wavered, then vanished. Vivid, fervid, furtive, festive, forfeit, verify, vivify. Say the file of fricatives fast, and feel the front teeth fight the lower lip for every single one of them. Fail to finish and the vipers, unfortunately, forgive very few of the visitors who falter halfway.

100 words · about 40 seconds

Curious kangaroos gathered quickly, gawking at a cracked green gadget a cagey gardener had craftily concealed. Could a cagey gardener conceal a cracked green gadget from a curious kangaroo? Could a curious kangaroo uncover it quicker than the gardener could conceal it again? The gardener, caught, claimed the gadget was a garden gate catch; the kangaroo, unconvinced, kept digging. Cake, gate, coat, goat, cot, got, cull, gull, clash, glass. Keep the back of the tongue working and the front of it quiet, because the moment the two of them swap the whole garden collapses into a croaking, clacking, gurgling mess.

99 words · about 40 seconds

Sixty shy shipwrights shaped six sheer ship shafts, shifting sixteen shattered shells sideways so several sharp sailors could ship them safely. Should a shy shipwright share a shaft, or should six sailors simply shove? The sixth shipwright, sure of himself, seized the seventh shaft, slipped, and shipped the whole shipment shoreward. Sash, shush, session, cession, seashore, sunshine, shoeshine, sixth, sixths. Switch the tongue between the two sounds sixteen times without settling in the middle, because the middle is a slush neither sound survives, and a slushed sibilant is the surest sign somebody is going faster than they can hold.

101 words · about 40 seconds

Many moaning men mentioned numbers nobody managed to remember, murmuring among mounting mounds of unnamed manuscripts. Ninety nimble minnows swam among nine thousand humming anemones, none of them naming another. Singing, swimming, humming, running, ringing, winning, warming, morning, mourning. Mind the nasals: the lips shut for one, the tongue tip rises for another, and the back of the tongue closes for the third, so the wrong one turns a moaning man into a mourning one and nobody notices but the microphone. Nine mumbling monks named nine nameless mountains, then unnamed them, then named them again, and not one among them minded.

102 words · about 41 seconds

Wild vines wound westward while weary violinists waved, wondering whether the western wind would ever weaken. Van, wan, vine, wine, veal, wheel, vet, wet, verse, worse. A vexed violinist waving wildly is not a wavering violinist, however, and whoever wrote otherwise was thoroughly wrong. We were wary; we wavered; we vowed. Would a wandering vagrant waver where a valiant wanderer would not? The vines, unbothered, wound onward, weaving over walls the villagers vowed were invincible, winding westward while the weakening wind whistled worriedly, waiting, wondering, and wearing everybody out. Whichever way the wind went, the vines and the violinists went with it.

99 words · about 40 seconds

Six thick thistle sticks; six sixths of thirty-six; the sixth sixth stays stuck. Texts, tests, thrusts, twelfths, sixths, fifths, depths, breadths, lengths, strengths. Say the list twice without swallowing a single ending, because the ending is where every speaker quietly cheats. Amidst the mists and coldest frosts, with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts, he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. Insists, persists, desists, resists. The tongue has to stop three separate times inside one syllable, and the moment it stops only twice the whole list collapses into mush nobody can tell apart.

101 words · about 40 seconds

Twenty-two quick queens quietly quizzed twelve quarrelling quails while a twitching quokka queued behind a quivering quartz quarry. Would a quarrelling quail quit quizzing if a queen requested quiet? Quite. Twist, twirl, tweak, twitch, twelve, twenty, between, betwixt. Queue, quay, quiche, quirk, quartz, quench, acquaint, acquire. The lips round and the tongue jumps backward for every one of them, and doing that twenty-two times without the two of them trading places is the entire trick. Quietly, quickly, quaintly, the queens quit, and the quails, quite unquizzed, quarrelled onward without them. Quit quarrelling, quipped the quokka, and queue quietly like everybody else.

97 words · about 39 seconds

Those daring thieves dared the dithering theatre to determine whether the third door had truly been dented. Dare, there, dough, though, day, they, den, then, doze, those. Tin, thin, taught, thought, tree, three, tank, thank, tick, thick. The tongue tip touches the ridge for two of them and slides between the teeth for the third, and the difference between a daring deed and a daring thief is exactly that eighth of an inch. Thirty dithering doubters doubted the third theory thoroughly, then determined, doubtfully, that the third theory deserved every doubt the doubters had doubted it with.

117 words · about 47 seconds

A blue bag of black bugs bled blue-black blood while a big black bug bit a big black bear and made the big black bear bleed blood. Blue blood, black blood, bad blood, bare bear. Better bitter batter beats bitter better butter. A well-oiled bicycle is not a boiled ice-cycle, and a shining soldier is not a signing shoulder. The words are simple and the ordering is the trap: every pair sits one slipped consonant from the other, so the mouth reaches for the wrong opening and the whole line collapses into something that means nothing at all. Say it slowly once, then twice as fast, and listen for the moment your own tongue swaps them over.

101 words · about 40 seconds

Though a rough cough and a hiccough plough him through, he ought to thoroughly slough off the dough. Through, though, thought, thorough, tough, trough, bough, bought, brought, borough. Eleven spellings, eleven sounds, and not one of them warns you which it is until you are already halfway into the word. A thoroughly thoughtful ploughman thought he ought to plough through the rough borough, but the borough had been thoroughly ploughed through already, so the ploughman, thoroughly thwarted, thought better of it. Read it once and you will guess wrong twice. Read it twice and you will guess wrong somewhere else entirely.