Eli5: Why do tongue twisters work? Does our mouth not synchronize with our mind?
In: 6
Your tongue is a muscle, and just like it can be difficult to train your hands to play a piano. It can difficult to train your tongue to make the complex motions for some specific sentences
Depends on what you mean by “synchronize”. When we speak, we decide what we will say, plan the physical movements required to produce the desired sequence of sounds, make the movements, listen to ourselves making the sounds, and adjust as we go. The movements of tongue, jaw and lips are quite subtle, complex, time-sensitive, and very fast.
Tongue twisters are atypical phrases that use slightly varied repetition of sound sequences to cause difficulty and confusion in this process.
This doesn’t happen often in everyday language because generally people collectively gravitate towards ways of expressing themselves that are less effortful. But it’s fun to mess with ourselves, apparently. 🙂
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