Like riddles and fortunes, tongue twisters were another means of whiling away time of a night around a campfire in which the whole family could participate. And like riddles, they came down by word of mouth along through generation after generation. Each of the mountain families had its own favorite tongue tangler.
Thousands of them still make the rounds today. Song-writers and limerick makers have discovered them over the years and exploited them in such compositions as Mairzy Doats, Six Long Slim Slick Sycamore Saplin’s, The Canny Canner, and the Flea and the Fly in the Flue.
A popular one that popped up to trip and tangle an unwary tongue goes like this:
“A tutor who tooted the flute
Tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Said the two young tooters,
It’s harder to toot
Than to teach two young tooters to toot.”
Then there’s this one:
“Two toads totally tired to trot to Troy.”
According to popular lore, hiccupping can be cured by saying certain tongue twisters. The next time you are sized with a siege of hiccupping, try to say this aloud in one breath:
“Hiccup, snicup, rise up, right up! Three drops in the cup are good for the hiccup.”
One that is easy the first time but almost impossible three times rapidly: “Black bug’s blood”
Or try this one: “Fanny Finch fried fiver floundering frogs for Francis Fowler’s father.”
You are mighty good if you can pull this one off without lisping: “The sixth sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.”
Or this one: “The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.”
Related to the Peter Piper tongue twister is this old one: “Needy Noodle nipped his neighbors nutmegs.”
A good test for a suspected tippler might be the ability to say: “Sister Susie sat in the soup.”
Or try intoning: “Nine nimble noblemen nibbling nuts.”
A well known one is the Bettie Boddie tongue tangler which goes like this:
“Bettie Boddie bought some butter,
But the butter Bettie bought was bitter;
Then she bought some better butter
To make her bitter butter better”
Then there is this tricky one:
“Three gray geese in the green grass grazing:
Gray were the geese and green was the grazing”
And this last one:
“When a twister a-twisting would twist him a twist,
For twisting a twist, three twists he will twist;
But if one of the twisters twist from the twist,
The twist untwisting untwists the twist.”