What are Tongue Twisters?
When most people think of tongue twisters a childhood image comes to mind: Attempting to recite a tricky rhyme or phrase as fast as possible without tripping over the verbal challenges and hurdles lurking within these tongue-tying sentences, such as Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled Peppers.
By combining the effects of alliteration (repetition of a sound), particularly of similar but not identical sounds, with a phrase designed such that it is made very easy to slip (perhaps making a Spoonerism) accidentally, these sentences and poems can be guaranteed to provide us with lots of fun and laughter.
But tongue twisters are not only for light-hearted linguistic fun and games. They serve a practical purpose in practising pronunciation. English tongue twisters may be used by foreign students of English to improve their accent, actors who need to develop a certain accent, and by speech therapists to help those with speech difficulties.
When their use is for one of these more serious reasons, then tongue twisters are generally subdivided into categories classifying them by the particular vowel or consonant sounds they exercise. The Peter Piper twister, for example, clearly provides practice for the P sound.
Tongue-twister: a formula of sequence of words difficult to pronounce without blundering. The Chambers Dictionary
When most people think of tongue twisters a childhood image comes to mind: Attempting to recite a tricky rhyme or phrase as fast as possible without tripping over the verbal challenges and hurdles lurking within these tongue-tying sentences, such as Peter Piper Picked A Peck of Pickled Peppers.
By combining the effects of alliteration (repetition of a sound), particularly of similar but not identical sounds, with a phrase designed such that it is made very easy to slip (perhaps making a Spoonerism) accidentally, these sentences and poems can be guaranteed to provide us with lots of fun and laughter.
But tongue twisters are not only for light-hearted linguistic fun and games. They serve a practical purpose in practising pronunciation. English tongue twisters may be used by foreign students of English to improve their accent, actors who need to develop a certain accent, and by speech therapists to help those with speech difficulties.
When their use is for one of these more serious reasons, then tongue twisters are generally subdivided into categories classifying them by the particular vowel or consonant sounds they exercise. The Peter Piper twister, for example, clearly provides practice for the P sound.
Tongue-twister: a formula of sequence of words difficult to pronounce without blundering. The Chambers Dictionary
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?
If Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
She sells seashells by the seashore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I'm sure she sells seashore shells.
Red lorry, yellow lorry.
Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
And chuck as much as a woodchuck would
If a woodchuck could chuck wood.
Source:fun-with-words.com
نظر