Red Leather Yellow Leather

This past weekend, I attended a play with Mother Media, Sister-san and some friends. The show was "Tony 'N Tina's Wedding," in which audience members are "cast" as guests at the wedding of Tony and Tina. The real cast members interact with the audience, so in addition to watching the wedding party's scripted performance, you might also find yourself trading meatball recipes with the mother of the bride or dancing with a tipsy usher. Fun stuff.

Anyway, getting up close and personal with the cast reminded me of my college days, when I hung around the theater department a lot. Actors spend a lot of time warming up their bodies and voices while getting psyched up for performances. Most have a certain pre-show routine to help them tame their nerves and get into character. Some of the thespians I knew recited tongue twisters, including "red leather yellow leather," while marching around the theater building.

Other enunciational challenges included:

• Why do wily women win wealth and wed well?
• Whether the weather be cold or whether the weather be hot, we'll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.
• Moses supposes his toes to be roses, but Moses supposes erroneously, for nobody's toes can be posies or roses as Moses supposes his toes to be.
• I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit; upon a slitted sheet I sit. (This one can result in inadvertent profanity, so practice discretely.)
• The slick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.
• Rubber baby buggy bumpers (Mother Media's favorite, and mine too)

While I'm thinking about it, how about tongue twisters in languages other than English? I'm too monolingual to know if you've goofed, but they'd sure be interesting to hear.