A listener shares a tongue twister he learned at the age of five: Theophilus Thistle sifter, while sifting a sieve of unsifted thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb. Another version goes If Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter, can thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb, see thou, in sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles, thrust not three thousand thistles through the thick of thy thumb. Sometimes tongue twisters don’t have to be lengthy at all. Just try saying Peggy Babcock three times fast. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Thistle Tongue Twister”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. We got a voicemail from Roger Short who said,
I’d just like to tell you, Theophilus thistle sifter while sifting a sieve of unsifted thistles thrust 3,000 thistles through the thick of his thumb.
Theophilus is very busy and he needs a band-aid.
Roger said, my grandma taught that to me when I was five years old and I’m 75 now.
Did he, did Roger get that all the way out without stuttering?
That’s a heck of a tongue twister.
Yes, yes.
He did a great job.
I’ve since looked up other versions of this.
If thou fullest thistle, the successful thistle sifter can thrust 3,000 thistles through the thick of his thumb.
See thou in sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles, thrust not 3,000 thistles through the thick of thy thumb.
Thy thumb.
Wow.
Two twisters.
Yeah, that’s a great one.
I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.
I haven’t either.
I mean, I know all the standard ones that you learn in grade school.
Yeah.
Or at least I’ve heard of them.
Yeah, rubber baby buggy bumpers.
Peter Piper and all those.
Yeah.
And six sheep, six sheep, whatever.
I can’t do that one.
You can do it.
Peter Piper I can do.
Peter Piper picks a pickle puffer.
If Peter Piper picks a pickle puffer.
Whereas the pickle, pickle, pepper, peed, or pepper, picked.
But that’s the…
That’s great.
And when you’re 75, you’ll probably be just like Roger, just, you know.
But you have to practice that like 500 times to get that good at it.
You do.
It’s really hard.
And it stops being useful as a tongue-relaxing exercise, and you have to move to the next one.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Like Peggy Babcock.
Excuse me?
I mean, that’s not a person who says tongue twisters.
It is a tongue twister if you say it three times fast.
Peggy Babcock.
Peggy Babcock.
Peggy Babcock.
Peggy Babcock.
That’s very good.
Yeah.
You must do radio or something.
I’ll do a little radio.
You want to put on a radio show with me, Martha?
Yeah.
Let’s do one about language.
Okay.
And there’s something missing.
Yeah.
Callers.
Yeah.
People around this country have interesting things to say, cool voices, and stuff to talk about.
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