SEO

August 15, 2009

Tongue-twister - Wikipedia

A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly. Tongue-twisters may rely on similar but distinct phonemes (e.g., s [s] and sh [ʃ]), unfamiliar constructs in loanwords, or other features of a language.

The hardest tongue-twister in the English language (according to Guinness World Records) is supposedly The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. William Poundstone claims that the hardest English tongue twister is "The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us."

Many tongue-twisters use a combination of alliteration and rhyme. They have two or three sequences of sounds, then the same sequences of sounds with some sounds exchanged. For example, She sells sea shells on the sea shore. The shells that she sells are sea shells I'm sure. or A black bug bit a big black bear, made a big black bear bleed blood.

Another example, Betty Botter (En-Betty Botter.ogg listen (help·info)):

Betty Botter bought a bit of butter
The butter Betty Botter bought was a bit bitter
And made her batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter makes better batter.
So Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter
Making Betty Botter's bitter batter better.

Two well-known such tongue-twisters are "Peter Piper":

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

But if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Were they pickled when he picked them from the vine?
Or was Peter Piper pickled when he picked the pickled peppers
Peppers picked from the pickled pepper vine?

and "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?":

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much wood as he could,
and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

This one won grand prize in a contest in Games Magazine in 1979[citation needed]: (Contest announced in issue of November/December 1979; results announced in issue of March/April 1980).

Shep Schwab shopped at Scott's Schnapps shop;
One shot of Scott's Schnapps stopped Schwab's watch.

Some tongue-twisters are short words or phrases, which become tongue-twisters when repeated rapidly (often expressed as "Say this five (or three, ten, etc.) times fast!"). Examples include toy boat, Peggy Babcock, Irish wristwatch, and Red Leather, Yellow Leather. Big whip is another that is difficult for some people to say quickly, due to the lip movement required between the "g" and "wh" sounds.

 Spoonerisms

Some tongue-twisters are specifically designed to cause the inadvertent pronunciation of a swearword if the speaker stumbles verbally (see spoonerism).

An example of this sort:

I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's mate,
And I'm only plucking pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's late.
I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's son,
And I'm only plucking pheasants till the pheasant pluckers come.

 Loanwords and other language elements

Certain loanwords contain unfamiliar constructs, which are used in tongue-twisters. For example, Finnish strutsin perhe (the family of an ostrich) has the consonant cluster "str", whereas such consonant clusters do not occur in native Finnish words. Repeated, this might be pronounced as "strutsin perse" ("ostrich's arse").

Other features of language can make for tongue-twisters; for instance, the Czech strč prst skrz krk (stick a finger through the throat) relies on the absence of vowels, although syllabic r is a normal Czech sound.

Something that might be regarded as a type of tongue-twister is a shibboleth, that is, a phrase in a language that is difficult for someone who is not a native speaker of that language to say.[citation needed] An example is Georgian baq'aq'i ts'q'alshi q'iq'inebs ("a frog croaks in the water"), in which "q" is a sort of gulping sound.

 Non-English

There are tongue twisters in every language. One Japanese twister (attempted by child genius Chiyo Mihama in the Anime series Azumanga Daioh) is Basu Gasu Bakuhatsu, Busu Basu Gaido, meaning "Bus Gas Explosion, Ugly Bus Guide." Another (as heard on Please Come Home... Mr. Bulbous) is Tonari No Kyaku Wa Yoku Kaki Kuu Kyaku Da, meaning "The customer next to me eats a lot of persimmons (or oysters)". An example in Polish is "Król Karol kupił królowej Karolinie korale koloru koralowego". In Scouse, the dialect of the English city of Liverpool, it is common to say They do, though, don't they, though[citation needed]. In Scouse this is easy as all of the diagraphs 'th' are pronounced as a 'd'[citation needed], but saying it quickly in Standard RP or GA (hear GA) can be very difficult.

The sign language equivalent of a tongue twister is called a finger fumbler. According to Susan Fischer, the phrase Good blood, bad blood is a tongue-twister in English as well as a finger-fumbler in ASL.[2]

 Literature

The children's book Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss consists almost entirely of densely rhyming tongue-twisters.


  1. ^ http://williampoundstone.net/Ultimate.html
  2. ^ http://www.umich.edu/~archive/linguistics/linguist.list/volume.2/no.251-300

 

 

Search Wikiquote Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tongue-twisters
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tongue twisters
Tongue-twister - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
at

Dead Piper Pilot Cat Call Crash + Gawker, Foster Can't Hear AP Tonguetwister Glee In Sibilance, Dumb Assonance! @mrjyn #youtube #video

RT @mrjyn http://bit.ly/10RpDP - #Dead Piper #Pilot #Cat #Call #Crash @gawker - GAWKY FOSTER KRAMER PREDICTS YOUTUBE, DR. SEUSS VIDEO! -- "Sadly, this presents another opportunity for a dumbass to make another dumb joke on YouTube"--Foster Kamer http://gawker.com/5338123/plane+helic...

Dear Foster: If you can't hear this AP reporter barely contain his tonguetwisting glee at the sibilance and dumb assonance with which he happily transforms into Dr. Seuss/Cronkite, then you, my gawky little Internet aggregator friend, are the dumbass.

~ nichopoulouzo

AND FOLLOW @mrjyn http://twitter.com/mrjyn OR @nichopoulouzo FOR MORE Dumbass YouTube Videos Like:

Plane-Helicopter Collision's Air Traffic Controller: On His Cell, Talking About Dead Cats
1:15 PM on Sat Aug 15 2009, 1,284 views

Morbid and sad: the NY Post reports that the air traffic controller responsible during last weekend's helicopter-plane crash was on his cell discussing dead cats when the crash occurred. Meanwhile, broken down footage is showing the plane clipping the chopper.

Per the Post, the guy who was supposed to be on watch from Teterboro was on his cell with a contractor, talking about a dead cat who was removed from the airport when the crash happened. The phone call, to an airport contractor, was a "silly conversation" concerning a dead cat that had been removed from the airport, a retired union official said, in an account supported by transportation officials also familiar with the contents of the call. The controller and his supervisor at Teterboro have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. "He was on the phone, and we have made no determination about what role this may have played in the accident," said NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson. "It was a lot of things happening in just a few minutes."

To say both of them have probably had the worst week of their lives would be an understatement. If this is, in fact true, one guy's small mistake, not made, could've possibly prevented a collision where everyone in it ended up dead.

And now, footage taken by a tourist on a boat below the crash is circulating around the internet; it's been around for the last week, but a New York news station did a frame-by-frame of the crash; one wing goes spinning off of the body of the plane the moment it comes in contact with the helicopter. The FAA's using the footage for their investigation.

Surely, there's something trite to be said for representing yet another step in the progress of eyewitness accounts becoming even more readily available following tragic accidents, so we can learn from them and use them to prevent future instances as technology progresses forward.

Sadly, this presents another opportunity for a dumbass to make another dumb joke on YouTube:





Plane-Helicopter Collision's Air Traffic Controller: On His Cell, Talking About Dead Cats

By Foster Kamer, 1:15 PM on Sat Aug 15 2009, 1,284 views

Morbid and sad: the NY Post reports that the air traffic controller responsible during last weekend's helicopter-plane crash was on his cell discussing dead cats when the crash occurred. Meanwhile, broken down footage is showing the plane clipping the chopper.

Per the Post, the guy who was supposed to be on watch from Teterboro was on his cell with a contractor, talking about a dead cat who was removed from the airport when the crash happened.

The phone call, to an airport contractor, was a "silly conversation" concerning a dead cat that had been removed from the airport, a retired union official said, in an account supported by transportation officials also familiar with the contents of the call. The controller and his supervisor at Teterboro have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. "He was on the phone, and we have made no determination about what role this may have played in the accident," said NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson. "It was a lot of things happening in just a few minutes."

To say both of them have probably had the worst week of their lives would be an understatement. If this is, in fact true, one guy's small mistake, not made, could've possibly prevented a collision where everyone in it ended up dead.

And now, footage taken by a tourist on a boat below the crash is circulating around the internet; it's been around for the last week, but a New York news station did a frame-by-frame of the crash; one wing goes spinning off of the body of the plane the moment it comes in contact with the helicopter. The FAA's using the footage for their investigation.

Surely, there's something trite to be said for representing yet another step in the progress of eyewitness accounts becoming even more readily available following tragic accidents, so we can learn from them and use them to prevent future instances as technology progresses forward. Sadly, this is the last thing that'd occur to some people, as it mostly just presents another opportunity for a dumbass to make another dumb joke on YouTube:

Plane-Helicopter Collision's Air Traffic Controller: On His Cell, Talking About Dead Cats - Crashes - Gawker
at

Drag queen bank robber Huy Trong Luong sentenced to prison term for nine bank robberies


AP Photo/Sang Tan

Huy Trong Luong of Jersey City, New Jersey, was sentenced on August 12 for a series of bank robberies and attempted bank robberies committed in New Jersey and Connecticut.  Over a five-month period in 2008, Luong robbed or attempted to rob nine different banks and stole more than $39,000.  Each robbery was committed while Luong was disguised as a woman.  U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle sentenced Luong to twelve years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.  He was also ordered to pay $39,067 in restitution.

Luong entered a guilty plea to two counts of bank robbery on March 31, 2009.  The two bank robberies which were the basis for the plea were the Commerce Bank in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and a Wachovia branch in Greenwich, Connecticut.  As part of the plea, Luong also admitted to the other seven robberies, which were also considered at sentencing.  Luong was indicted in both New Jersey and in Connecticut, and the cases were consolidated in New Jersey for purposes of the guilty plea and sentencing.

Luong's cross-dressing disguise failed to protect him during his failed robbery attempt of a bank in Chatham, New Jersey, on May 5, 2008.  Police found a black wig, a black Dolce & Gabbana hat, a woman's make-up kit, and a black jacket inside his getaway minivan.  His minivan also contained Roman candle fireworks disguised as dynamite.  Luong admitted that he made death threats or threats of violence to the bank tellers during the robberies, and during the three Connecticut bank robberies he passed the tellers a note that he had a bomb.

During his plea hearing, Luong admitted to a total of nine robberies.  On January 11. 2008, Luong robbed a Wachovia Bank in Greenwich, Connecticut, of $2,000.  On January 13, 2008, he robbed $2,000 from Commerce Bank in Westport, Connecticut.  On January 22, 2008, Luong robbed Provident Bank in Toms River, New Jersey, of $11,109.  On April 20, 2008, he robbed the  Commerce Bank in New Canaan, Connecticut, of $3,600.  On April 26, 2008,  he attempted to rob the  Wachovia Bank in Highland Park, N.J..  On April 28, 2008, he robbed Commerce Bank in Stafford Twp., N.J., of $5,388.  On April 30, 2008, he robbed the Commerce Bank in Bergenfield, N.J., of $12,020.  Luong robbed Commerce Bank in Mahwah, N.J., of $2,950 on May 4, 2008, and on May 5, 2008, he attempted to rob the Commerce Bank in Chatham, N.J.  The final failed robbery of the Commerce Bank resulted in his arrest.

Drag queen bank robber Huy Trong Luong sentenced to prison term for nine bank robberies
at

Federal Bureau of Investigation - The Newark Division: Department of Justice Press Release

Department of Justice Press Release
white spacer
For Immediate Release
August 12, 2009		 United States Attorney's Office
District of New Jersey
Contact: (973) 645-2700

Bank Robber Who Dressed in Drag Sentenced to 144 Months in Prison for Committing Nine Robberies in Two States

CAMDEN, NJA—Jersey City man was sentenced to 144 months in prison today for robbing or attempting to rob nine banks in New Jersey and Connecticut over a five-month period in 2008 and getting away with more than $39,000, Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr., announced.

U.S. District Judge Jerome B. Simandle also ordered Huy Trong Luong, 41, to pay restitution of $39,067 and to serve three years of supervised release upon the completion of his prison term.

On Mar. 31, 2009, Luong specifically pleaded guilty to two counts of bank robbery associated with the April 20, 2008, robbery of Commerce Bank in Bergenfield, N.J., and the Jan. 11, 2008, robbery of a Wachovia branch in Greenwich, Conn. Luong, however, also admitted committing seven other robberies, all of the conduct was taken into consideration at sentencing.

In each of his robberies, Luong disguised himself as a woman, according to a criminal Complaint filed after his arrest following a final, failed robbery attempt on May 5, 2008, in Chatham, N.J. Inside his getaway minivan, Police found a black wig, a black Dolce & Gabbana hat, a woman’s make-up kit and black jacket, according to the Complaint. During his plea hearing, Luong admitted his participation in the following robberies and attempted robberies:

  • April 30, 2008, robbery of Commerce Bank in Bergenfield, N.J., of $12,020;
  • Jan. 11, 2008, robbery of Wachovia Bank in Greenwich, Conn., of $2,000;
  • Jan. 13, 2008, robbery of Commerce Bank in Westport, Conn., of $2,000;
  • Jan. 22, 2008, robbery of Provident Bank in Toms River, N.J., of $11,109;
  • April 20, 2008, robbery of Commerce Bank in New Canaan, Conn., of $3,600;
  • April 26, 2008, attempted robbery of Wachovia Bank in Highland Park, N.J.;
  • April 28, 2008, robbery of Commerce Bank in Stafford Twp., N.J., of $5,388;
  • May 4, 2008, robbery of Commerce Bank in Mahwah, N.J., of $2,950;
  • May 5, 2008, attempted robbery of Commerce Bank in Chatham, N.J.

Luong admitted that he made death threats or threatened the tellers with violence in each of the robberies. At the time of arrest, law enforcement recovered cash and a hoax bomb – what appeared to be three sticks of dynamite with fuses, wrapped together – in Luong’s minivan. In reality, the sticks were Roman candle fireworks, according to the criminal Complaint. In the three Connecticut bank robberies, Luong passed a note to the tellers advising them that he had a bomb and would detonate it if they did not meet his demands.

In May 2008, Luong was indicted in the District of Connecticut in Bridgeport for the three Connecticut robberies. The cases were consolidated in New Jersey for purposes of the guilty plea and sentencing.

Marra credited Special Agents with the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Weysan Dun in Newark, N.J. for the investigation. He also credited the FBI in Connecticut and local police in New Jersey and Connecticut involved in the arrest and investigation of Luong.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert G. Marasco of the U.S. Attorney’s Violent Crimes Unit.

Federal Bureau of Investigation - The Newark Division: Department of Justice Press Release
at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)