2y ago

Your lips don't touch when you say the word touch, but do touch when you say separate

My 8 year old son told me this randomly after getting out of the shower this morning.

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...and if you're reading this, you just tried it.
This reminds me of an expression in Spanish
"Todo junto se escribe separado y separado se escribe todo junto"
Which I just discovered is the same on English lol :
"All together is written separately and separately is written all together"
- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/altogether-or-all-together
  Seems it depends on context.
  
  Regular Noam Chomsky over here
In french, "ça touche pas ça touche, ça touche ça touche pas" is a common riddle. You ask the person to guess what "it" is in "'it doesn't touch' touches, 'it touches' doesn't" (of course this doesn't work in English but it does in french due to the usage of 'pas' for 'doesn't'). They may then ask you if various things touch or not. The game may go on for several hours as the guesser tries to guess objects, animals, concepts before they get that it is about whether or not your lips touch.
A common occurence is the guesser gives up, and whatever phrase they use to indicate that is just interpreted as another guess by the riddler: "I give up! -'I give up' touches."
- There's a similar riddle in English: "I like coffee but I don't like T", so the person has to ask about various words and you say you don't like them if they contain the letter T.
Hyphenated. Non-hypenated. The irony.
How can touch be real if our lips don't touch when we say it?
- how can touching be real if your lips aren't real
  
  I’m freaking out, man!
- Almost perfect . You forgot to capitalize every word, but otherwise the impression was chef's kiss
Now it'd be cool if Vsauce spawns here explaining how you can't truly touch something.
- Hey Vsauce, Michael here. What does it mean to be touched by something? In 1890, a poet named Rene Bomier said that to touch is to feel the world around you. But what if the world touched you back?
The meaning of words has nothing to do with how they’re formed. Big brain.
- It's almost like showerthoughts aren't always as profound as they seem. Almost.
But I can touch your lips while saying 🤫"touch"🤫
Aahh. Genius!!
thank you
definitely weird, and when I say turtle my lips don't become a turtle. why not??
Same in spanish with "tocar" and "separar"
Nor do they touch when saying “together.”
Because you should touch with your fingers first before your mouth and when we separate we shut our lips ..
Not like this in Persian! Seperate is jodaa in Persian (جدا), and touch can be translated to tamaas (تماس).
Same with "hawak" in Filipino.

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