Stuff You Should Know - Why is it so hard to say "toy boat" three times fast?

Episode Date: February 5, 2009

If you've ever tried to say "toy boat" three times fast, you'll know that these two words can quickly turn into one tricky tongue twister. But why? Unravel the mysteries of tongue twisters and language in this HowStuffWorks podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from house stuff works calm Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark Hi, Josh. Hi Chuck. I'm Chuck. Hey Chuck Hi, Josh. This could arguably be the worst intro. We've ever recorded Chuck. What do you think? Maybe all right? But let's not do it again. Yeah, no, no, let's keep it raw and fresh, baby Okay, so Chuck say toy boat three times fast now toy boat toy boat toy boat toy boat toy boat That actually at last one when you correct yourself. That's pretty good

But the point is you can't you're not supposed to correct yourself. You want to hear me? Yeah, toy boat toy boat to but I can't do it You just went into to bet it kind of but Jerry our producer actually did it a few minutes ago when you were out of the room Yeah, doing your push-ups like you do between podcasts. It gives me pump Chuck. Yeah, she did it on the first try It's the big deal. Jerry does everything perfectly. Yeah, but most people can't I've never been able to say toy boat three times It's a tongue twister it is that's exactly right And did you know Chuck that it's assumed that tongue to tongue see yeah, yeah, baby Tongue twisters are universal. Yes, they are I did not know that until we did a little research

All right, so you you have some from a foreign lands I do I want to hear some because I don't know any I found a Chinese one and there was actually like an mp3 maybe mp4 that of this Chinese tongue twister I was like, I'm not going to trouble learning that well I will do my best to Japanese tongue twisters nice in their Translation so the first one is Kairu piyoko piyoko me piyoko piyoko I was a was it a piyoko piyoko me piyoko piyoko. That is a tongue twister. It is what does it mean?

It translated loosely means take two sets of three frog croaks Mm-hmm add them together, and they make six frog croaks beautiful like that. Yeah, and here's another That's just a word to the wise it is it's good word words to the wise I like that and here's another one from Japan. It is Kono kugiwa Hikinuki niki kugi da and that means the nail this nail is hard to pull out Wow, so you you can kind of see how maybe a tongue twister in Japanese doesn't really translate into a tongue twister You know in English true, but those she sells seashells down by the seashore. That's kind of silly, too It is but this nail is hard to pull out. It's more of like a that's a statement. You're right

You know seashells seashells seashells Jesus. Yeah, it's descending in the silly. So basically Chuck It's becoming increasingly apparent that as far as tongue twisters go. I have what you might call a phonological disorder Wow, you heard of these I have okay. Well, I'll tell everybody else about it. You just sit there quietly, okay? Okay, so a phonological disorder is basically Um, it's it's any time where you're developing in such a way that you aren't pronouncing certain phonemes and a phoneme if You'll remember correctly when we were you know back in second or third grade. There was hooked on phonics Remember hooked on phonics worked for me, right? Okay, so instead of a phonic It's actually called a phoneme technically, but it's the same thing like buh boy boy, right, right?

Those are two phonemes two separate phoneme, right? And they're the way we pronounce words and we learn how to how to pronounce different words phonetically That's that's how we learn to read Usually right and that's also how we learn to communicate now if that development Doesn't happen properly. Mm-hmm. You can end up with a phonological disorder, right? Is that a speech impediment? Yeah, that's another way to put it, but a speech impediment could also include stuttering which is not a phonological or Yeah, a phonological disorder, right? It's actually it's extraneous, but This is specifically with the pronunciation of a phoneme, right, right?

So let's say you didn't really get the guh sound You're gonna have that apostrophe after the n and an ing like nothing, right something, right? True and that's actually a sign that you may have a phonological disorder when you leave them off at the end especially or When you substitute one for another right Sarah Palin Give me an example. Well, that there was just kind of the common joke was that she never pronounced anything with a g on the end Yeah, yeah, but I think that was just more colloquial. I think so, too And I think it was very very well studied colloquialisms indeed. Yes, so That the so the phonological disorder thing apparently anywhere from seven to ten percent of five-year-olds have one really

Yeah, and it can it can be really, you know, like leaving the g off the end of a word, right? He's kind of mild or it can be incredibly severe where no one understands a word You're saying including your family, right like you just you you're essentially not making sense Even though you know what you want to say you're just you know one can understand you so therefore What's the point of communicating right? So that's severe not like when you hear like a little kid say my shoulder holds Yeah, well actually that's part of development, too That's that that's either either they have a phonological disorder or they're still working out the kinks right or their shoulder holds Yeah, exactly

So and there's two there's two causes for phonological disorders, right? Well, actually, there's three the third one is just beyond cryptic. The first one is structural, right? Where your your brain isn't structurally developed in the normal way and therefore there's there's something missing There's some neurons aren't connected. There's there's something that's that's structurally Different about your brain that's going to keep you from being able to say certain phonemes. Okay, the other is neurological where your your nervous system isn't finally tuned quite enough to be able to really get the real polished phonemes like Like a zh sound or something like that, right? You'd have trouble speaking French. I would say probably And the the third one just scares me it's

It's a phonological disorder of indeterminate origin Basically, we have no idea. Okay, and the reason we have no idea is because we aren't entirely certain How we speak how we hear how we speak? We don't know Did you know that I did not know that well, give me something you got Well, I thought you were gonna talk about the tongue. Oh, yeah, we'll get to the tongue Okay, it's now a good time. I think that was a great time Okay, well the tongue is actually as everyone knows very important to your speech And taste and taste obviously the tongue is connected to the base of your mouth

By a piece of tissue a vertical piece of tissue. Yeah, what's it called? I everyone wants to know that and now we know it's that's called the lingual phranolum Is that how you would pronounce it? I guess I know we constantly butcher Pronunciation's I feel bad the lingual phranolum. That's what I went with. Okay. I like that. Thanks, and that's what that little thing Is called if yours is too short You you may get a speech impediment because that because you're trying has to have a certain amount of movement Right to be able to carry out to produce these phonemes, right? Right, but you can have it corrected

They're actually surgeries a little bit of snip. Yeah a little snip here in a tuck there You might as well talk about putting bamboo shoots under your fingernails when I think of like snipping the lingual phranolum I know yeah, that's bad. Yeah So yeah, the tongue has a lot to do with how you pronounce things and so It has everything to do with so if you have a problem with it with the phranolum there Then you're gonna have some issues with your speech and I imagine there's probably an opposite disorder To where you're maybe lacking a lingual phranolum and your tongue just kind of lolls around in your mouth Interesting, maybe you have like a very little control over it

I would think that would produce a speech impediment as well, but you just made that up, right? I did but you know that somebody somewhere out there has that problem, right? Yeah, and if you do send us an email Thanks for tuning in Okay, Chuckers you want to get back to the brain part? Sure, because really your tongue's not doing anything on its own. It's obeying your brain true, right? So it all comes back to the brain essentially doesn't it always does So there's this guy who in the 1960s his name is Al Lieberman I think he was a Yalie and he came up with this thing called the motor theory of speech perception

Okay, and basically this theory said that to produce speech We use the same areas of the brain that we that we used to hear to listen, right? So it's like a mimicking type of thing. It's basically what this guy's point was is that When we hear something we hear it like we're speaking it, right? Maybe we cut it into phonemes But it's it's basically the reverse process, right? Which actually a lot of people bought into for for many many years and then it kind of fell out of favor in the 80s, right? right But then almost as soon as it fell out of favor favor some some studies started coming around that actually supported it and now

It's gaining strength again, especially since the advent of the MRI, right? but you want to tell them about that 1982 study that really kind of Suggests that we do Hear the same way we speak right the Haber and Haber study is yeah, I can't figure out their brother and sister I assume they're probably husband and wife Ralph and yeah, yeah They did it some research and what what they did was they got some college aged Subjects and had them and silently read sentences that had tongue twisters, right? And then they also had them a control group who I'm sorry

The control group was a different sentence that did not right tongue twister just a regular sentence Yeah, so they found out that it took longer to read to silently read the tongue twisters Then it did for the sentences that did not contain them right and these were all fully developed um college-age test subjects right and so if if We aren't using the same process in reverse We shouldn't have any trouble silently reading a tongue twister correct But it suggests that we we read by breaking things up into phonemes Just like we do when we're speaking right which would suggest that the the motor theory of speech

Is correct right which I agree with because I looked up some some cool tongue twisters And I have to read them slower in my head than I just like I would when I say them right like what well There's one. I believe it's the Guinness Holds a Guinness record for being and I can barely get through this one for being the most difficult tongue twister and that is How do you quantify that I don't know world record? Well, we'll have to ask Guinness about that. It is the sixth sick sheiks six sheeps sick. I Can hardly get through that So the sixth six, I can't even say it. Can I try? Yeah, it's at the top there

Okay, so the sixth sick sheiks six sheeps sick Man, that's pretty good. Thank you. I just overcame the world record holder for toughest tongue twister. That's impressive Yeah, thanks a lot and there's also something called spoonerisms. Did you look into that? No, huh? Spoonerism is when there's a transposition of it's usually an initial sound of two or more words So for instance tons of soil versus sons of toil That's a spoonerism and it's and it's actually a lot of times they're designed People will make up a spoonerism that will get you to say curse word by accident like I see you pee No, not exactly more like

I'm not a pheasant plucker. I'm the pheasant pluckers mate and I'm only plucking pheasants because the pheasant pluckers late So if someone I got to that fast enough, they might accidentally say a bad word. Yeah I guess I love to try that later once it's you know off, right the recording button is off and interestingly also found out there They're also sign language Twisters and they call those finger fumblers. I Wow, how about that? I didn't tell you that one that is so that's a that's a sign language spoonerism a sign language Tongue twister and I did not find any I tried to research and find some Mm-hmm. So if anyone out there knows of any sign language finger fumblers, we'd love to hear about it

Well, that's pretty interesting Actually, that kind of leads us back to the whole toy boat thing right as it turns out like there's no definitive answer for why it's tough For us to say toy boat, right? Yeah, whether it's it's physical like the tongue can't move fast enough You just said it funny and saying it well, but yeah, I'm from Ohio and sometimes you can hear that every once in a while okay, and So we don't know if it's if it's physical like the tongues just incapable Right, we found a couple of phonemes that we can string together that the tongue doesn't move fast enough to say it three times fast Or if it's a brain glitch, right? Right if we if there are finger, what are they called?

Finger fumbler finger fumblers even though you're producing language. You're moving your fingers True, so I would imagine you're using a different region of the brain for that Yeah, or it may be an additional region of the brain. So yeah, we don't we can't say for certain Whether it's the brain or the tongue that's responsible. It could be the tongue think about it toy boat right right The going from the oi like the tongue is at the bottom of your mouth Oh, yeah, the boat your your tongue has to go back up and kind of click on the sides around your molars true That may be just something that it can't do very quickly right or it could be you know your your motor system in your in your

Brain is not working correctly right these things really frustrate me I don't know if it's a little kid in me from class coming out But any anything like this or anytime someone you know the rub your stomach and patch your head or any of those physical things with Basically where you trick your brain, right? I hate those. Do you why I just can't do yeah It reduces me to I feel like you know to like the single-celled organism I just can't work it out. Well, don't feel too bad Chuck is I have one fast-backed for you What's that that I think you're gonna feel better about okay? The average speaker only makes about one error for every thousand words spoken really and I would say you're above average

So don't feel too bad that I have more or below average Below average well, there's my one right yeah I think if you counted up the mistakes that I make in a podcast that would be much higher than that But I think that's a little different than normal speaking conversation. Okay, I feel the pressure Well, if you guys out there want to see the word lingual Afranium and by word of course, I mean words. There's two for me You can type in why can't you say toy boat in our search bar at howstuffworks.com? But first before we let you go. Don't go anywhere yet because we have listener mail. Yes, Josh

We have listener mail. Yes. This was just one piece of mail from our fan Lila Feldman and Lila's writing in about our what to do with the dead body episode. Yeah, I love that one She does too, but she had a little bit of a problem with it Okay, so we're gonna read this because I don't want people to think we just cherry pick, you know the kudos to ourselves No, we definitely don't so she writes in and says that I was a little disappointed with a recent podcast because you didn't mention Some older and more traditional ways of burial that can be considered green. Mm-hmm. She's a very good point Yeah, for instance Jewish burial Traditionally someone was just wrapped in a shroud and put in the ground and then that eventually evolved to a pine box

Right, but that would have been an old-school way to have a green burial Traditional Jewish bear it makes sense. It does. Yeah, and another method which no one uses nowadays Uh, it's popular in Roman times till around the Turkish Empire is to just bury the body as is in the ground Wait for the flesh to decompose and then dig out the bones and then you usually put those bones in a catacombs and Or taken with the family when they were trying to like escape a tyrant or go on vacation Even they would take these bones or it works really good for a nice soup Yeah, a nice console me. Yeah, so that was from my Lila Feldman and we appreciate Lila writing in and I'm sure there were All sorts of ancient ways of dealing with dead bodies that we failed to consider

So we kind of had a modern take on it But right we just get so frantically caught up in the green movement, right? We just keep looking forward looking forward right back. There's a lot of answers if you look back I bet and if you'd like to take Chuck and I to task in a very puritanical manner You can send an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com For more on this and thousands of other topics visit howstuffworks.com Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?