First, the tongue pushes the chewed-up food to the back of the throat, where sensory receptors cause muscles in the pharynx to contract.
He was under her tongue, pushing it up against the roof of her mouth, then on top, pushing down, then sliding smoothly along the sides and around, as though he thought he could tie a simple up-and-over knot.
"The image of him undergoing a physical examination for lice in the hair and having his tongue pushed down with a tongue-depresser is about as routine as it gets, which showed basically that he was an ordinary mortal, was not superhuman, that he was no longer a threat," he said.
The tongue pushes against the roof of the mouth, forcing breath to come out fast through the nose -- Achoo!
But the real peril was a large lava tongue pushing into the harbor, threatening to block off the fishing fleet, the main income source for the island.
The man in the boat should feel the texture of the entire tongue pushing down on his body and his boat.
Ideally, during infancy, the breast-feeding baby's tongue pushes at the upper jaw above where the front teeth will come in, and this helps the upper jaw to move forward where it belongs.
The tongue pushes food around the mouth, keeping it within reach of the teeth, while rhythmic movements of the jaw enable the teeth to grind up food without injuring the tongue itself.
