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A tongue twister is a group of words that are hard to say together in a close sequence. They usually have the same sounding consonants. So, when you do try to say the words in order, the pronunciation comes out all wrong.

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Tongue twisters are a great way to practice and improve pronunciation and fluency. They can also help to improve accents by using alliteration, which is the repetition of one sound. They're not just for kids, but are also used by actors, politicians, and public speakers who want to sound clear when speaking.

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Did you know that the famous sea shell tongue twister dates back to 19th century England? It’s about a woman called Mary Anning. She used to collect shells and fossils on the beach to sell to wealthy families and make money for her own family. While the tongue twister is famous, maybe Mary deserves some more fame herself – she actually discovered the first flying dinosaur which is displayed in the British Museum!

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English paleontologist Mary Anning discovered the first known ichthyosaur skeleton at only 12 years old and went on to make many more discoveries which changed human's understanding of prehistoric life.

The phrase "she sells seashells by the sea shore" isn't just a tongue twister; many people believe it refers to the trailblazing English paleontologist Mary Anning! When she was only 12 years old, Anning discovered the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton and she spent the rest of her life searching out fossils that helped change humans' understanding of prehistoric life and natural history. Sadly, because she was a woman, she was rarely credited for her critical discoveries, and only in recent years have her wide-ranging contributions received the recognition they deserve.

Mary Anning was born on May 21, 1799 in Lyme Regis in Southwest England. Her father was a carpenter who supplemented his income by selling fossils from the Dorset cliff beds. Local folklore says that, when Anning was 15 months old, a neighbor was holding her and chatting with two other women when lightning struck the tree above them. All three women died, but onlookers rushed Anning home and revived her with warm water. Reportedly, she was a sickly baby, but after the lightning strike, she grew healthy and strong and demonstrated a quick and curious mind.

Anning had almost no formal schooling; she often had to join her father and brother Joseph - her only surviving sibling - searching for fossils to sell. Visitors were eager to buy curios like "snake-stones" (ammonites), "devil's fingers" (belemnites), and "verteberries" (vertebrae) that eroded out of the cliffs. The work could be dangerous, but finding a major fossil could mean the difference between eating well and starving, particularly after her father died in 1810. Anning had a knack for hunting down good specimens, and the sure-footed girl was often able to get to places others couldn't reach.

She made her first well-known find in 1811 at age 12; her brother had found an ichthyosaur skull and Anning discovered the rest of the 17-foot (5.2 m) long skeleton of the giant extinct marine reptile. The family sold it to a local lord for £23, the equivalent of about $1,870 today, who then sold it to a major collector who displayed it in London.

There the fossil caused a sensation as the strange creature appeared to be older than the Biblical account of creation would allow and it proved that animals could become completely extinct. This flew in the face of the scientific wisdom of the day, and required scientists to reevaluate both the age of the Earth and the history of life upon it. Anning's discoveries and the scientific questions they raised also set the stage for Charles Darwin's articulation of the theory of evolution a generation later.

But this shift in scientific thinking didn't do much for the Annings; they were still eking out what money they could with smaller fossil finds. By 1820, the family had made no major discoveries for a year, and were on the verge of selling their furniture to pay their rent. A collector and long-time customer, Lietuenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch, auctioned the fossils he had bought from them on their behalf. He raised enough money to put the Annings in a more stable financial position. The auction also brought them to the attention of the growing geological community.

As she made more discoveries, Anning's reputation continued to grow. In 1823, she discovered the first complete plesiosaurus skeleton, and then in 1828, the first British pterosaur fossil. Despite her limited education, she read scientific papers, trained herself in geology and paleontology, and even taught herself anatomy through dissection. Many scientists praised the quality of her scientific illustrations. By 1826, she had saved enough money to buy a home with a storefront window where she opened a shop named Anning's Fossil Depot and sold fossils to collectors and museum curators from around the world.

Still, the gender and class barriers of the time held her back from both the recognition and compensation that her unique discoveries should have afforded her. When geologists published papers about scientifically important fossils, they rarely mentioned who discovered them. Although she was considered one of Britain's most knowledgeable paleontologists, women were not permitted to join the Geological Society of London.

The only writing she ever had published in a scientific journal was a letter to the Magazine of Natural History in 1839, questioning their claim that a recently discovered shark fossil represented a new genus, since she had discovered similar fossils long before. Anna Pinney, a young woman who sometimes joined Anning on fossil hunts, once wrote, "She says the world has used her ill... These men of learning have sucked her brains, and made a great deal of publishing works, of which she furnished the contents, while she derived none of the advantages."

In 1830, Anning was struggling again; major finds were few and far between, and Britain's struggling economy had reduced the demand for smaller fossils. The risks of her profession were also laid bare when, in 1833, her constant companion when she went collecting, her small terrier Tray, was crushed to death by rock falling from a cliff. Then, in 1835, she lost her life savings to a bad investment. William Buckland, a prominent British geologist and a friend of Anning's, convinced the British government to grant her an annual pension in honor of her contributions to science. By the mid-1840s, her work tailed off; she had developed breast cancer and was unable to go looking for fossils because of the pain. She died on March 9, 1847 at the age of 47 and was buried at the local parish church.

After her death, and particularly in recent years, appreciation for her contributions grew. Several major scientists, British geologist Henry De la Beche and British paleontologist Gideon Mantell, credited her fossil discoveries in their papers, and her obituary was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society - even though they had refused to admit her to the society and wouldn't admit any woman until 1904. Historians agree that we may never know just how many specimens she discovered, but today, she's hailed as one of the great early paleontologists and is now the subject of numerous books, including those highlighted below. Britain's Natural History Museum has described her as the greatest fossil hunter ever known and, in 2010, the Royal Society included Anning in a list of the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science. "The carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself," Charles Dickens once noted, "and has deserved to win it."

Books For Children and Adults About Paleontologist Mary Anning

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Mary Anning: How A Poor British Carpenter's Daughter Became "The Greatest Fossil Hunter Ever Known"

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English paleontologist Mary Anning discovered the first known ichthyosaur skeleton at only 12 years old and went on to make many more discoveries which changed human's understanding of prehistoric life. The phrase "she sells seashells by the sea shore" isn't just a tongue twister; many people believe it refers to the trailblazing English paleontologist Mary Anning!

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She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.
The shells she sells are sea-shells, I’m sure.
For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Then I’m sure she sells sea-shore shells.

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She Sells Seashells by the Seashore | Tongue Twisters

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Betty Botter bought some butter but, said she, the butter’s bitter.
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter will make my bitter batter better.
So she bought some better butter, better than the bitter butter,
put it in her bitter batter, made her bitter batter better.
So ‘t was better Betty Botter bought some better butter.

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Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?

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Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper

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Peter Piper tongue twister song (Impossibly Fast Version)