A friend of mine just forwarded me a tongue twister. And I got curious about a possible relation with connected speech
The pheasant plucker’s daughter sits plucking pheasants pleasantly
Such a tongue twister is supposed to end up with a swear word if said very fast. Recently I've also come across a video explaining assimilation process in spoken english. Is there any relation between this specific tongue twister and the connected speech in general?
(The video is this)
I was wondering if saying the swear word is the effect of the fact that in "pheasant plucker's" there's some kind of assimilation (for example I guess the "t" is absorbed to a "p") etc.
Best Answer
The tongue twister produces the F word for two reasons, neither of which are due to assimilation that introduces slight pronunciation differences. The words make you trip over them for their repetition of similar consonants, and the F word is a more familiar sound than the odd "pheasant plucker’s daughter sits plucking," so the mouth naturally reaches for it during the rush and confusion.
In addition, this tongue twister produces a swap from the pheasant plucker to the p-easant ph-ucker, called a spoonerism. Thus we get a welcome bonus, the peasant's surprise, less so.
Spoonerism -- ODO