The tongue has no map of separate taste zones. Every region can pick up all the basic tastes.

What it means

The diagram with sweet at the tip and bitter at the back is one of the great durable errors of school science. It came from a mistranslated German paper of 1901 that reported only slight regional differences in sensitivity, which a later textbook redrew as sharp zones. Taste buds across the whole tongue respond to sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory alike.

The claim comes from NIDCD.

Nearby in the collection

The facts either side of this one.

• National Eye Institutemedium, 72 letters
• NIDCDmedium, 68 letters
• NIDCDeasy, 74 letters
• NIDDKhard, 74 letters

About as hard as this one

Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.

• NCBI Bookshelfhard, 76 letters
• RSChard, 70 letters
• USGShard, 66 letters
• MedlinePlushard, 75 letters