Unique New York (tongue twister)
This was on the internet group rec.humor, "Tongue Twisters Wanted," on May 2, 1991:
Unique New York.
Unique New York.
I love to live in
Unique New York.
There are 581 Google hits for "Unique New York" and "tongue twisters." The first Google Groups hit is from July 3, 1987: "I am a linguist. I write a tongue twister on the board that they haven't hear (sic) before: 'Unique New York Unique New York Unique New York....'"
The ProQuest Historical Newspapers database has it in the Washington Post of August 1983.
Remember that it's "Unique New York," but we're not "most unique."
Ben Zimmer spotted the flowwing.
The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
by Iona Archibald Opie and Peter Opie
Oxford: Clarendon Press
1980 (c. 1959)
Pg. 30:
Tongue Twisters.
The child's delight in the coincidence of sound is nowhere more apparent than in the pleasure he takes in tongue twisters or, as he sometimes calls them "jaw busters". "Peter Piper", "The Leith Police", "Unique New York", "A proper copper coffee pot", "A stewed sow's snouit", "Three grey geese in a green field grazing", and "She sells sea shell on the sea shore", continue to be favourites as they were fifty years ago.
Unique New York.
Unique New York.
I love to live in
Unique New York.
There are 581 Google hits for "Unique New York" and "tongue twisters." The first Google Groups hit is from July 3, 1987: "I am a linguist. I write a tongue twister on the board that they haven't hear (sic) before: 'Unique New York Unique New York Unique New York....'"
The ProQuest Historical Newspapers database has it in the Washington Post of August 1983.
Remember that it's "Unique New York," but we're not "most unique."
Ben Zimmer spotted the flowwing.
The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren
by Iona Archibald Opie and Peter Opie
Oxford: Clarendon Press
1980 (c. 1959)
Pg. 30:
Tongue Twisters.
The child's delight in the coincidence of sound is nowhere more apparent than in the pleasure he takes in tongue twisters or, as he sometimes calls them "jaw busters". "Peter Piper", "The Leith Police", "Unique New York", "A proper copper coffee pot", "A stewed sow's snouit", "Three grey geese in a green field grazing", and "She sells sea shell on the sea shore", continue to be favourites as they were fifty years ago.