Pleasure in overcoming difficulties is an essential feature of all play. The determined onset against opposition, which is so conspicuous in play, shows how important is the fighting instinct, so deeply rooted in us all. Even in the lall-monologue, when the child accidentally produces a new sound by means of some unusual muscular effort, he intentionally repeats it (Baldwin’s persistent imitation[82]). Older children playfully cultivate dexterity of articulation by repeating rapidly difficult combinations of sounds. The commonest are those where the difficulty is mainly physiological, as Wachs-Maske, Mess-Wechsel; Der Postkutscher putzt den Postkutschkasten; L’origine ne se desoriginalisera jamais de son originalité; Si six scies scient six cyprès; She stood at the door of Burgess’s fish-sauce shop welcoming him in; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? And many similar ones. Others require quickness of wits as well, as in these verses:
“This is the key to the gate
Where the beautiful maidens wait.
The first is called Binka,
The second Bibiabinka,
The third Senkkrenkknokiabibiabinka.
Binka took a stone,
And for Senkkrenkknokiabibiabinka broke a bone,
So that Senkkrenkknokiabibiabinka began to moan.”[83]
Occasionally some obscurity in the language used involves a comic element, as—