The Family Inheritance

by Deb on May 9, 2011

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{ 10 comments }

Leah - Bogue Living May 9, 2011 at 7:22 am

I can’t roll my tongue – in fact I can barely poke it out my mouth! Both my kids had tongue tie, but had them cut as infants, so I wonder if this is related to my poor range of tongue movement, even though the frenulum doesn’t look too tight. My 8yo who had the worse TT can roll her tongue and stick it far out so who knows?

I remember doing similar surveys in high school when we studied genetics, much fun 🙂

Deb May 9, 2011 at 8:35 pm: That’s interesting, it certainly sounds like you have a tongue tie, they must loosen up enough to talk. I’ve never heard of how it might affect rolling, although you can roll it inside your mouth so I’d suspect it doesn’t.

Tracey May 9, 2011 at 7:53 am

I can’t wiggle my ears, but I can wiggle my nose, I’ve been able to to it for as long as I can remember, but it doesn’t work when I’m when smiling. No one else in my family can do it, not even sure how I ever found out that I could.

Deb May 9, 2011 at 8:38 pm: That’s another cool one, I’ve never met a nose wiggler before.

Kate May 9, 2011 at 8:08 am

I love this post! My Mum can’t curl her tongue either, or click her fingers…so guess how my siblings and I spent hours of fun as children? Yep, curling our tongues and clicking our fingers at her. Luckily Mum saw the funny side 😉 My hubby and I can tongue curl, as can our nearly-7-yr-old, not our nearly-4-yr-old and bub is too young to tell lol.

Interestingly, both hubby and I have brown eyes. All three of our children have the most stunning blue eyes!! I love genetics 🙂

Deb May 9, 2011 at 8:36 pm: I love recessives, they can pop up anywhere. I hope you Mum is as pleased with her non-rolling grandchild as mine is!

John Lerch June 17, 2011 at 3:38 am

I’m an ear wiggler and a tongue roller. I don’t think I use the auricula superior muscle, only the posterior. I can wiggle just my left ear naturally; if I think about it hard enough I can wiggle my right ear only also. My right eye is dominant; but if I think about it hard enough, I can make my left eye the pointing eye with my left hand. As I drive past a picket fence I can see through the fence by focussing further out.
Practice looking straight ahead and being aware of what is at the edge of your vision like at right angles to straight ahead.

John Lerch June 17, 2011 at 3:55 am

Sorry, I forgot to mention my sister had to learn to wiggle her ears (and the range of motion is pretty small ); but she was a natural nose wiggler. I’m the other way around.
One other interesting question: Can non tongue rollers whistle (the normal kind of whistle)? I used to think everyone could whistle; but now I’m not so sure. Although I’m a natural easy tongue roller, it took me a while to learn to whistle. But when I did, it involves a small amount of tongue rolling .
We can raise just our left eye brow; but doing just the right has minimal motion (the opposite of Spock).
Also practice flexing just your pectoral muscle without flexing your arm muscles; and then practice flexing just 1 side of your pecs. Practice standing up without contracting your thigh muscles (IOW use just your rear end). Practice pulling something toward you using just the muscles in your back and no arm muscles. Bottom line (no pun): we seem genetically predisposed to overuse our limb muscles for actions better suited to torso muscles.

sabrina April 18, 2012 at 1:30 pm: I’m not particuarily sure if I’m a tongue roller or not. In fact its extremely painful to do and I can’t roll it up all the way, but I can do it fairly okay.
When I was young we learned my younger brother could do it at age 4, at first I couldn’t do it but with practice I figured it out. Like I did with my left eye to practice winking with or wiggling my eyebrows in grade 2. So I’m not even sure. But I sure the hell can whistle like a boss. ^-^
sabrina´s latest amazing offering ..Wordless Wednesday – A Billion Tiny Moons

Sarah Philips December 20, 2011 at 1:12 am