Can you say the hardest tongue twister? (my writing challenge - day 16) “Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.” Can you say it very fast a few times? MIT researcher found this particular combination of words as the most difficult English tongue twister. Our brain seems to lose control of our mouth, when we try to say certain phrases very quickly. As we speak we have to coordinate our movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and larynx. Our brain sorts sounds. It decides which muscle have to move for the sounds. The sounds “sss” and “shh” both are produced on the front of the tongue. When you mix both sounds in a sentence, then it is hard to say like in the tongue twister: “She sells sea shells by the sea shore” It is a part of a poem by Terry Sullivan: She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore; The shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure; For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore; Then I'm sure she sells sea-shore shells." It is a poem about a little girl, Mary Anning. His father and her discovered not only sea shells, also dinosaur fossils on the beach. They sold them to tourists. As an adult Mary continued to dig and discovered a full-size skeleton of dinosaur which were famous in the 1800’s. For a poet maybe it is a poem, for speech researcher it is interesting, for politician and speaker it is an good exercise and for mostly people it is a big fun. Tongue twister are a worldwide phenomenon. In Germany we have many “Zungenbrecher” (tongue twister in German). One of my favorite is: Denke, nie gedacht zu haben, denn das Denken der Gedanken ist ein gedankenloses Denken, denn wenn Du denkst, Du denkst, dann denkst Du nur, Du denkst, aber denken tust Du nicht. In Czech there is a song full of twisters: „Strč prst skrz krk” If you want a real challenge then try this Polish tongue twister: “W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie.” I thank you for reading and helping me with correction and comments. Have a lot of fun tomorrow on the international tongue twister day!