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).

Read more about Tongue:  Etymology, Length, Physiology, Pathology, Sublingual Medication, Non-human Tongues, Cultural Aspects

Famous quotes containing the word tongue:

    I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
    How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
    upon me,
    And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
    And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
    feet.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    With a tongue like a razor he will kiss,
    the mother, the child,
    and we three will color the stars black
    in memory of his mother
    who kept him chained to the food tree
    or turned him on and off like a water faucet....
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    As one child psychologist friend of mine explains it with tongue in cheek, your baby only needs a lot of light at night if he’s reading or he’s entertaining guests.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)