Tongue twisters, the popular nonsensical sayings that are ridiculously hard to say (or deceptively easy, whichever way you want to look at it) might seem to be simply alliterative strings of words meant to trip up, well, your tongue but, as it turns out, tongue twisters are not random, which is why the popular ones — like Peter Piper and the woodchuck — have been around for a hot minute.

Tongue twisters have technically been around since as early as the 19th century when John Harris published “Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation,” which included a twisty tongue tango for every letter of the alphabet. While the book was meant to help children learn the fundamentals of speech mechanics, its titular twister garnered quite the attention and inspired a lot of lore about its namesake. 

Speculation aside, Peter Piper was based on French horticulturalist Pierre Poivre, whose last name actually means ‘pepper’ in French. Pierre was said to be exploring the viability of growing American spices in the French Mediterranean.