Massachusetts Institute of Technology picks the toughest tongue-twisters

Neither Peter Piper — who picked a peck of pickled peppers —nor Tim the thin twin tinsmith have made it to the top of the list of toughest tongue-twisters, though even the eight words preceding the comma in this sentence could well be a contender.

According to a study by researchers at MIT, the most tongue-confounding combination of words is “pad kid poured curd pulled cod” as it reduced many volunteers to benumbed silence. That it makes no sense obviously does not detract from its inelocutable qualities, but it is hard to believe this phrase pronounced repeatedly proved more unutterable than old favourites, particularly the similar sounding (and shorter) Hindi poser ‘kaccha papad, pakka papad” .

If the focus is only English, the top slot could also have been bagged by the entirely cogent “the sixth sick sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick”, already deemed by the Guinness Book to be that tongue’s most taxing twister, outstripping “she sells seashells by the seashore”, “three grey geese sat on the green grass grazing” and “there's no need to light a night light on a light night like tonight, for a night light’s a slight light on tonight’s light night”. Besides, though researchers may want to map errors in the brain’s processing of tripwords, most others would only want to know whether tongue-twisters really twist tongues….