The people feel that they can guarantee the suite for sweet Phoebe.

The ability of the English actress was really exaggerated.

Ethel spent seventy-seven cents to get the best eggs and vegetables.

Fancy!  The fascinating character Harry Cannon married Anne Hammond.

The athletic man catches ants in his handkerchief for Harriet.

I can’t ask Frances for half the dance.

Rude Ruth’s two rooms are near the school’s pool.

Pull the poor Worcester wool from the good cook’s full cook book.

Oblige the Olympia police and omit Othello.

All orphaned daughters thought they bought straw.

Paul paused, then walked toward the lawn for water.

What horrible foreign correspondent in Washington washed the hot coffee copper pot in Dorothy’s office?

I want a modern model watch.

What was it?

Barbara’s large apartment at Harvard was near the garage of her father’s market.

The absurd girl is a connoisseur of turtles.  The Colonel’s nurse rehearses works at work.

Actually contrary to the customary government circumstances in America, the extraordinary secretary offered the actor’s picture.

I wonder if Murray’s mother and brother love the constable.

Hail Yale’s eighty-eight sailors delayed in jail.

Aye, it’s time to acquire the entire choir’s files.

Boyish Roister toils and toils for oil.

Oh no, Joe, don’t go for Mr. Stowell’s coal.

Ring out the towel as you pronounce the vowels in “How now brown cow”.

Were the dear experienced auctioneer and the ideal career cashier really here?

Various parents said farewell to fair-haired airy Mary Carey.

Alluring poor Steward endured the rural tour during the regulated sure cure.

More and more the court ignores an encore.

The landlord bought four more quarts of oil for the worn floors.

The stupid student of Stewart’s Institute sang the Duke’s new tune on Tuesday in the studio.

Will you bring peculiar brilliant Italian William to value Julia’s millions on WWSW?

He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.

The singer sang a long song on Long Island.

Merry Mary married Harry.

“Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.”

Tom met Tilly for tea on the train to Trenton.

Rehearsing makes Horace hoarse and hoarseness is even more harassing to his humble hobby-horse.  Now if this hoarseness harasses Horace’s horse, how it must affect Horace.  Actually, it haunts Horace.

The task was the last that the past master could grasp, but one can’t mark his charms harmfully.

The stern learner heard from a bird how to burn the turf in Turkey and Burma.

A bored walker swore talking about the corn was a chore, in the storm-torn store.

She was seen to be evil, in the mean streets where the bees feed.

He moves to lose the clues of astute losers, whose crude boots bruise the loose newts.

The kids were hidden in the middle of the tin bins, where the hit list was still wished to fictionally exist.

The sad man was actually a cad, when marriage was banned and the bad band got splashed by the tacked hash.

The hell-bent hen was speckled and freshly sent by the men of the tenth regiment of the seventh section.

Don’t touch much stuff, said the glum, sun-struck nun who worried over the fun-loving wonders.

She’s got a soft spot in the Grotto for washing tops and bottoms of socks.

Look at the book, said the cook as he took the pullets and put them in the nook.

Actors and authors have a special set of acquaintances above another mezzanine area of the gallery where woman can alert the workers.

I hope you don’t go home alone, moaned the old crone who was holding a cold toasting poker of oak.

It’s how a stout brown owl scolded, mouthed the house mouse, and it’s out with a foul brown trout.

A boy with a coin had a choice of moist soil, and boiled spoilt oysters.

I might if I could try by buying slyly fly from the guile of the white guys.

Stay and wait stated the mate or play stale games in the grey, unmade plain.

A weird fear was here by the cleared mere in the bleary clearing.

There, there, said the scared, caring fairy to the fair glaring pair with the flared hair.

The fluent hewer moved the gruel to the stewer with a poor, cruel, doer.

Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom.

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, of birds and bowers.

The crystal was packed carefully into a clean crate.

The cat cleaned her kittens with incredible care.

Delia, afraid of the dentist, darted past his door.

Denizens of the deep defied the daring angler.

The far-flung effects of philosophy have not been fully felt.

Frank offered fifty-five dollars for finding his flea-bitten fox-terrier.

The ghastly green glow cast a ghostly glimmer on the grass.

Gray were the geese and green was the grazing.

High heels have been held to be a hazard to good health.

The hotel in the hollow had housed hundreds of historic heroes.

The jaunty major wagered his gems and jewels that the judge would not jail Jerome.

John and Jean jumped for joy over their geology major.

A million lanterns lighted the landscape.

Swallows, larks and quail all love our laurel tree.

Many middle-aged men were employed for the summer months.

Hymns were hummed by the multitude at the memorial tomb.

Nine funny gnomes danced in the shining moonlight.

Ned’s neighbours never noticed his newly numbered notepaper.

Rowing, hiking and swimming gave him outstanding strength.

Young ringleaders of the gang were hanged for killing the congressman.

Presumably the people at the pageant were pleased with the players.

Power politics involve principles that are apt to keep us in suspense.

Quinces of questionable quality make you queasy quickly.

Arid regions of the Rockies are rarely irrigated.

Remove all rats and other rodents from the barnyard.

The sun shines on the shabby shop windows.

Street lights glisten on glossy silver trees.

The youth spoke the truth about his pathological methods.

Thirty-three thugs hid in the thatched hut.

Teething did not bother him, but weather withered him.

Viking victories have been verified in various verse forms.

The visible universe is trivial compared to the vast infinity of space.

The whippet whined and whimpered while the white hunter whistled.

Twelve bewitched dwarfs were walking in our woods.

Yesterday you had a yen for yellow.

Do you yearn for your youngsters to yell yoo-hoo?

Lazy, hazy days are dog days.

Zebras in the zoo are used to the zany gaze of tourists.

 

Say the pairs of words below in rapid succession:

bold-bolt

cold-colt

mold-molt

had-hat

cod-cot

paid-pate

heed-heat

feed-feet

wad-watt

 

Say:

Five minutes to eight, not five minutes to wait.

His acts, not his axe.

Your two eyes, not you’re too wise.

An ice house, not a nice house.

 

Say:

Rubber baby buggy bumper.

Red leather, yellow leather.

Rinty-tinty tuppeny bun.

Out in the green fields grazing.

Picture or statue?  Statue or picture?

Law and order are the rule of the road.

Length, breadth, height and width.

He asks why we spray the crops for pests.

Six skilful, thrifty shrimp fishers.

A few tulips in the dew.

 

Word lists for practice on difficult consonant combinations:

ax   specs   rex   flax   ducks   dicks   sex

Clad in gay stripes, the children sing.

I’m thinking of singing a moving song.

Bring your gong along.

I think he got a drink from the tank.

In the spring the birds are singing and the donkeys braying.

I’m pulling a long length of string.

Rushing along, fleeing from the angry orangutan(g).

Gather the grapes and crush them.

Going and getting granny’s gift.

Ragged beggar was wagering with his dagger.

The car’s gears crashed.

He was greedily grabbing the gravy.

More wagons making mud.

Can you be carrying the carrots from the garden?

Another car needs cleaning.

I’m making threatening noises.

He’s getting the grey gold clubs.

Imagine mending the old thing.

I’m alone at home reading.

Playing a game for cards.

Speeding along the winding road.

The West Wind, by John Masefield

It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of bird’s cries.

I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.

For it comes from the west land, the old brown hills,

And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils.

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical

From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;a

I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news, (bothered for a rhyme)

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

I’m very good at integral and differential calculus;

I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

I know our mythic history, King Arthur’s and Sir Caradoc’s;

I answer hard acrostics, I’ve a pretty taste for paradox,

I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,

In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous;

I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,

I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!

Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din afore, (bothered for a rhyme)b

And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform,

And tell you ev’ry detail of Caractacus’s uniform:c

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

In fact, when I know what is meant by “mamelon” and “ravelin”,

When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin,d

When such affairs as sorties and surprises I’m more wary at,

And when I know precisely what is meant by “commissariat”,

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,

When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery –

In short, when I’ve a smattering of elemental strategy – (bothered for a rhyme)

You’ll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee.e

For my military knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury,

Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;

But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

From “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” The Pirates of Penzance – Lyrics by W.S. Gilbert

Grip Top Sock, by Clifford Turner

Give me the gift of a grip top sock

A dip drape, ship-shape, tip-top sock;

Not your spiv-slick, slap-stick, slip-slop stock

But a plastic elastic grip-top sock.

None of your fantastic slack swap-slop

From a slapdash flash cash haberdash shop.

Not a knick-knack, knit-lock, knock-kneed knickerbocker sock

With a mock-shot, blob-mottled trick tick-tocker clock.

Not a rucked-up, puckered-up flop-top sock;

Not a super-sheer, seersucker pukka sack-smock sock;

Not a spot-speckled, frog-freckled cheap sheik’s sock

Off a hotch-potch, moss-blotched, botched Scotch block.

Nothing slip-slop, drip-drop

Flip-flop or clip-clop;

Tip me to the tip-top

Grip-top

Sock.

To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,

In a pestilential prison, with a lifelong lock,

Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,

From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!

 

From “I am so proud,” The Mikado – Lyrics by W.S. Gilbert

What a to-do to die today, at a minute or two to two;

A thing distinctly hard to say, but harder still to do.

For we’ll beat a tattoo, at twenty to two

With a rat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tattoo

And the dragon will come when he hears the drum

At a minute or two to two today, at a minute or two to two.

The Meeting

The rover arrived at a river

The river arrived with a roar

A ravine that the river had riven

Made its roaring reverberate more

The river raved so that the rover reviled it

“Rave river!” said he.

“Though you rock the ravine you have riven

Your rage is no ravage to me!”