mumbling vs tongue-tied

mumbling

noun
  • An act in which someone mumbles something 

tongue-tied

adj
  • Reluctant to speak up; reserved, reticent. 

  • Having tongue-tie or ankyloglossia (“a congenital oral anomaly in which the lingual frenulum (a membrane connecting the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth) is unusually short and thick, decreasing mobility of the tongue and affecting eating, speech, etc.”). 

  • Physically unable to speak; dumb, mute. 

  • Prevented from or unable to express oneself clearly or fluently, or freely; at a loss for words, speechless. 

How often have the words mumbling and tongue-tied occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )