Tongue
The tongue is a muscular hydrostat on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates which manipulates food for mastication. It is the primary organ of taste (gustation), as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva, and is richly supplied with nerves and blood vessels. In humans a secondary function of the tongue is phonetic articulation. The tongue also serves as a natural means of cleaning one's teeth. The ability to perceive different tastes is not localised in different parts of the tongue, as is widely believed. This error arose because of misinterpretation of some 19th-century research (see tongue map).
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Famous quotes containing the word tongue:
“There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’the world
So soon as yours, could win me.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one’s tongue don’t move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)