I was falling asleep last night when the semi-sensical phrase started running through my head. I tried saying it once; it was unsurprisingly hard. The surprising thing was that it was equally hard to say it quickly in my head, or imagine my voice saying it quickly. I woke myself up and wrote it down in anticipation of making this blog article today. I remember once that I may have read that your skill with certain tasks, like playing a piano passage, is equal to the extent that you can imagine yourself performing them. It was still very odd that I couldn't make myself imagine saying this simple phrase, given that I can easily imagine myself flying (even from a POV perspective), singing opera, or being a kangaroo. Was my difficulty saying the phrase just psychological? Can you all imagine tongue-twisters faster than you can say them?
An interesting follow-up: today, having repeated the phrase countless times in my head since last night, I was able to imagine it faster. I thought perhaps yesterday was just some kind of tiredness effect, but then when I tried to say it this afternoon (for the first time since last night) I was able to say it more quickly as well, which wouldn't be expected (as it is objectively a hard thing to say, I think), unless the imaginary "practice" had been equivalent to real practice.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
it's slightly easier to imagine saying something, since there are fewer mechanical mistakes resulting from brain signal to mouth transmission.
ReplyDeleteHow often do you make up tongue twisters?
I think that I barely "say" words in my mind. If I really concentrate on them, it's like I have to sound them out and my tongue always moves to some extent.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea that belief can equate with doing is so true. Like when you're about to 'perform' something (even saying a tongue twister in front of people) and you're going for it, but underneath you think you'll mess it up, and then you do.
For some reason I don't have much difficulty saying this tongue twister, but it does mess with my mind a bit because it seems like an illogical object. (ie. why is only the tip of the chip a flake? and isn't a flake and a chip sort of the same thing?) So that gives me pause a bit because I think I'm saying the wrong thing, every time.
But, if you were to get me to say "Beryl's re-routed rural bureau" or something, then my mind, and mouth, would get mushy. And I can read it fine, but when I close my eyes and imagine it, i stumble on it because my tongue wants to say it.
But I think I've always had a disconnect between what I think and what I can say. I often can't get my words out in any manner resembling my thoughts. Also, sometimes when I'm at work and I'm trying to read the total that the customer is supposed to give me, I CAN'T. I have to concentrate to say the numbers properly, and even then sometimes it's wrong. It's weird. It's not that I don't understand the dollar value of it, I'll just say eight instead of four, or seven instead of nine, and it will take a damn awful lot of concentration and correcting to make it come out right.
ps.
"Husky's mushy plush moustache, plus slush."
They're fun to make.
pps.
this post reminds me of Pontypool
Bashing six shabby shoe soles.
ReplyDeletehaha, that one's the worst, Caroline. I can only say it if I pronounce it staccato-like.
ReplyDeleteha, all of your tongue-twisters are harder than any of the traditional ones by a million times. you make "she sells sea shells by the sea shore" sound like .... something really easy to say. A limerick, maybe? "There once was a man from Nantucket...."
ReplyDelete"Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
ReplyDeleteBut his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket."
... is apparently the original ending to that old ditty. I, for one, am surprised it got so famous. I thought there'd be a "fuckit" in there, or at least that it wouldn't rhyme a word with itself, or invent an unlikely name to create a rhyme. As a matter of fact I don't even really understand the punchline.
i also think i have a little of that dyslexia with the numbers lins, I know just what you mean. i literally can't remove my eyes from a number and then reproduce it in any form without twisting the last two numbers around. i over-rely on calculators to make up for it when i'm doing math. And yes it's an odd phrase- i was falling asleep and i think i was thinking about how i need to go to the doctor but didn't want to (still need to), and then i remembered the moment i started disliking doctors. when i was little i got a paint chip stuck in my eye and the doctor had to get it out with a metal probe- he accidentally jabbed me and i freaked out, and he said "well, she'll hate me forever." and i did, without knowing why until i was like fourteen and i said, "I hate Dr. ___" and my dad told me that story. sorry, to get back to my point, I remember seeing the probe with a flake of paint, aka paint chip, on the tip. sigh- how we do recall random jumbles of words and numbers instead of relevant information in an appropriate order.
ReplyDeleteNan tuk the bucket.
ReplyDelete;)
Yeah, I want to learn more about brain processes. Especially consciousness and memory. I find the string of thoughts, like your doctor-paint chip-tongue twister string, really interesting. How we pull in all these associations from all over the place. Also dreams too. Why do I barely remember my dreams? What the hell are dreams? btw, I saw Inception for the first time a few days ago. I liked it a lot!
Do you think you hated the doctor forever because s/he said that? Or because of the actual poke? Or because of the combo?
ho my god. i could have gone my whole life and i've never have gotten there... this opens up a world of limericks for me... because i didn't understand why the last word was always the same as the first... man.
ReplyDeletedo you know the best way to remember dreams? you need to have a way to sleep poorly. probably by drinking way too much and going to bed on a full bladder, that's the easiest/most effective way. and yes, that stuff is fascinating. for the millionth time i'm going to need to recommend the Brain That Changes Itself.
i liked inception too- although i have a way better ending idea... his wife should have put the little spinny top going in HIS brain safe but he didn't realize, then he would have to just learn to live with it.
Just had to share these from Wikipedia:
ReplyDeleteSequels:
But he followed the pair to Pawtucket,
The man and the girl with the bucket;
And he said to the man,
He was welcome to Nan,
But as for the bucket, Pawtucket.
Then the pair followed Pa to Manhasset,
Where he still held the cash as an asset;
But Nan and the man
Stole the money and ran,
And as for the bucket, Manhasset.
And this charming obscene version from 1927 (involving your suggested rhyme, Jules):
There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it.
And he said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear were a cunt, I would fuck it."
re: Inception.
ReplyDeletespoiler, somewhat
Yes! The old totem switcharoo! I was totally thinking something like that was going to happen and was really looking forward to it. I was expecting that he was going to be in a dream, or caught in the different levels of dreams and not be knowing it, because even reality had a somewhat dreamlike quality in the film. I kept expecting some huge revelation. Maybe he was in a dream at the end? Did I miss that?
The only issue I had with that movie was that they didn't explain how on earth they were tapping into each others dreams. They just would put an iv into their arms and nod off and suddenly merge in sleepspace. There was some nondescript machine thing in a briefcase always, but nothing was explained. At least they could have written ONE LINE of crappy dialogue about how they enter each others minds, what the hell? Also, WHY was Ellen Page chosen as the student? They talked about her being a good "designer" and had her standing around some models of buildings, but she wasn't designing anything on a computer or anything - probably because it would alert people to the fact that they hadn't explained the science behind the whole thing. Her recruitment? "Draw a maze." Are you kidding me? That lack of explanation really bothered me because it could have made it so much richer if they had.
But I really liked the saboteur personification of guilt aspect with the wife, and found it surprisingly touching, what with all the mistakes they made like recreating real places and people in their dreams, and that they had already grown old together and stuff.
I think I would spend way too much time in dreamland.
YES- i like a bit of pseudo-science in my fantasty/sci-fi to be sure. i hate the sense you get watching some things where it's like, " we don't need to pretend there's a logical reason for all this, because it's about the drama/context, right?" Wrong. It's all about BS explanations for things. Zombies particularly... that was part of what I liked about Pontypool, because it was all about the phenomena of what was making them sick. It's one of the many things that really annoys me about the walking dead- NO science.
ReplyDeleteI would stay in dreamland a lot too... i would do anything that let me slow down my experience of time, i think, but so would most people.
also that limerick's gross! It's funny because it sounds really sexist but there's no woman involved.