A twisted tongue? Sometimes I think I have one.

I don\’t mean the tongue twisters that were popular when I was a kid; for example, \”Still the sinking steamer sank.\” That one often morphed into: \”Still the stinking seamer stank.\”

Over the years, however, I\’ve seen that studying a foreign language will eventually impact one\’s mother tongue. I got the chance to start learning German as a college sophomore. In between what formal courses I could fit into my schedule, I kept it up on my own.

So here I am, many years later. I\’m always thinking \”neun\” (rhymes roughly with \”coin\”) for the numeral between 8 and 10; and \”Dezember\” (think DETS-ember) for the final month of the calendar year.

Then there are those bars called Kind. I look at that word and out it pops with a short \”I\”; the German word for \”child\”. Most people say it with long \”I\”, to rhyme with \”mind\”.

I\’m not the only one whose tongue does strange things. There\’s Mrs. Malaprop; and the Reverend Spooner. I wonder what those two might come up with when discussing bicycles!

For that matter, I should be glad that I have a twisted tongue, and not twisted legs. Twisted legs would make cycling hard, indeed. But for some fun on the next long ride, how about practicing those tongue twisters to help the miles fly past? Still the sinking … How did that go, again?