International Tongue Twister Day

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

Stephen King, It

It’s an elegant dance or a fumbling ungainly stumble through a linguistic waltz. Whether you’re discussing Peter Piper picking a peck of pickled peppers” or the vagaries chirped out by “A quick-witted cricket critic”.

International Tongue Twister Day encourages you to give your tongue a workout and challenge your friends to the most convoluted and difficult tongue twisters of the year. How many knots will you tie YOUR tongue into this year?

History of International Tongue Twister Day

Speaking of that old dastardly pickled pepper picker, it turns out that dear old Peter Piper was actually a real person, someone from our histories who was renowned for his taste in delicious spices and became immortalized as a result.

He was quite the character when you all things were taken in, he was French and dastardly, so that paints an image right there. He’s also one-armed, and a horticulturist, which must make planting tricky from time to time. To wrap it all up?

His favorite way of getting seeds for planting his spices was at the tip of a sword and the roar of a cannonball. Yep, you got it, he was also a pirate. When he got his hands on some nutmeg he got his rhyme “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers”

So which tongue twister is the most difficult? In the English language, the Guinness Book of World Records professes that to be “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.” Trust us, one try at that and you’ll be having your tongue tied up in knots for a week, or at the very least sound like a snake with a lisp. We know, it’s pretty awful.

How to Celebrate International Tongue Twister Day

Well celebrating International Tongue Twister Day is a piece of cake! You just have to spend the day practicing, reciting, and sharing your favorite tongue twisters with friends and family.

Maybe you can hold a competition at work to come up with new tongue twisters, or just challenge your friends and family to say them as fast as they can. International Tongue Twister Day comes but once a year, so maybe you can get a jump on the challenge for the year to come.

Feeling truly ambitious? Try writing one up to challenge that by W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan! There’s a nasty one in the Mikado that will leave your tongue hurting!