Birds affected by strychnine poisoning exhibit wing droop, salivation, tremors, muscle tenseness, and convulsions. Vowels are also categorized by the tenseness or laxness of the tongue. Mayhap the tenseness of the situation hit the cameraman. Tenseness is used to describe the opposition of "tense vowels" vs. "lax vowels". Tenseness is a phonemic feature in syllables with unaspirated initials. Long vowels are generally pronounced with greater tenseness than short vowels. There is correspondence between tones in tonal dialects and tenseness in non-tonal dialects. Occasionally, tenseness has been used to distinguish pairs of contrasting consonants in languages. A difference in tenseness is also discussed. Proposed distinguishing factors for these include length (), tenseness () and height (). They are also traditionally distinguished by length or tenseness.