MIT researchers studying brain speech planning just
came up with the hardest tongue twister in the world.
Anthony and Trace here for DNews.
Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat.
What are you doing?
I'm practicing tongue twisters.
It's going to be the world's hardest tongue
twister that's just come out.
And I'm going to get it.
I'm going to get it.
OK.
You know, it's weird that tongue twisters even exist,
if you think about it, right?
Because these are sounds that we make all the time.
These are words that we say all the time.
We're planning what we're going to say in advance.
Why do we get tripped up?
That's what the MIT researchers were looking to find.
And before you can find the cause of something,
you have to figure out the specific effects and what
actual things are happening that get our tongues so twisted.
So they got this group of volunteers,
and they gave them a whole list of these classic tongue
twisters, and recorded them trying to read them.
And they isolated the most common pronunciation errors
in an effort to start tracing back
the cause of our brain/mouth confusion.
So do toy boat again.
OK.
Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toboy, toboy--
See?
It becomes like toy boy, right?
Yeah, it's weird.
Now listen to top cop.
Got it.
Top cop, top cop, ta-cop, ta-cop--
So the sounds are blending together
and they're kind of sounding crazy, actually.
And there's always some blending,
but there's also always some space.
Well, sometimes, right?
And it varies.
You either crush them or you space them out.
And that happens in both short word twisters and longer phrase
ones.
Like, the sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's seek six.
Exactly what I was going to say.
That's bad.
Or, Susie sits in a shoe shine shop
where she shits-- where she sits she shines, where she shines,
she sits.
OK.
We're really bad at this.
But what's causing the errors, though?
They don't know.
But they do know that the quick blending, like ta-cop,
happens more in short word twisters.
And the spaced out blending, ta cop, happens more in phrases.
And that might be because the toy boat twisters have
that more-- the shorter words in a regular rhythm,
whereas the sentences have more irregular timing, overall.
So both errors happen in both kinds of tongue twisters,
meaning we use the same brain processes
for both parts of speech.
That is interesting.
But the most interesting thing that they found
came about when they were trying to devise different tests.
They created their own tongue twisters,
and there was one that they created that messed people up
so badly, they didn't even blend sounds together.
They just locked up and stopped speaking entirely.
Ready?
Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.
[UNISON] Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.
Pad kid poured--
Cold.
Curd cod.
Poured cold.
Curd.
Pad.
I don't know.
Does it feel harder to you?
They are all extremely hard for me.
If any of you guys want to record it,
we would love to see you trying to do it 10 times fast
and see if you fare better than we do.
You can leave them on our Facebook page,
or you can tweet them to us at DNews.
And anyone who does it, they can win five Internets.
Five Internets is the most Internets
that we are allowed to give out legally,
without a license from the government.
So that is a big prize.
Enjoy it.
Pad kid pulled cod.
Curd.