Get to work! New non-fiction books: tongue-tied for kissing, eating and communicating

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Today, November 12, is International Tongue Twister Day. At the same time, we celebrate the centenary of the birth of the German humorist Loriot (1923–2011). If we take both into account, what inevitably comes to mind is Evelyn Hamann (1942–2007), who spectacularly fails the English “th” in the Lorio sketch “Synopsis”: “Here you meet Priscilla Molesworth…” Or in Lorio cartoon “Talking Dog”: The dog makes a long, drawn-out cry. The reporter asks, “What did he just say?” Dr. Leto: “Fischers Fritze catches fresh fish…”

“Of course: a tongue twister,” writes German writer Florian Werner (52) in his recent book on language, in which he quotes a talking dog. “Loriot’s sketch shows that for the cultural technique of language it is not enough to have a language – you also need to be able to use it.” And the “muscle package”—four muscles running through the tongue from back to front, one from left to right, and the other from top to bottom—can do anything: “Thanks to this muscular three-dimensionality, the tongue is the most mobile organ in the human body.”

The multi-interested Werner, who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the musical style of rap, became a bestseller with the non-fiction book “Die Kuh” (2009) and published a volume of portraits on “Schnecken” (2015), is now almost logical. gives a portrait of the tongue from: “It resembles (…) an invertebrate mollusk, such as a worm or slug: animals that are also considered disgusting (and for the same reasons as the tongue).” Like many other things that come from inside the body—feces, blood, saliva—the tongue must therefore remain hidden.

But for some time now, Werner has noticed a more tolerant attitude towards language in art, music and literature. He recognizes the “transition to the Glossocene” (Werner) – the age of language – in a 1951 photograph of the Swiss-American physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955) with his tongue hanging out: “The cult motif (…) could probably become so famous only because being professor and Nobel Prize winner in physics, you’re not really doing anything like that.” Einstein paved the way for the spectacular performances of the rock group Kiss and the Rolling Stones trademark.

First of all, the scientist took care to preserve the honor of the language, because we could not live without it: the baby uses it to touch objects, taste food and drink, learns to babble, later speak and finally kiss – which leads to a new life in adulthood maybe. According to Werner, kisses reveal “the dual nature of language, its inextricable tension between culture and nature.”

Source: Blick