We quite enjoyed this selection of British tongue-twisters, which struck us more as vocal exercises aimed at improving enunciation and fluency rather than a word game—particularly a wicked cricket critic and many an anemone sees an enemy anemone—that served as a segue for a particularly fabled announcer’s test to be presented cold and with no preparation to prospective radio and television talent as a gauge of their pronunciation skills, memory and recall and breath control, asked to deliver the following without mistake, hesitation or rushing for lack of oxygen.
- One hen
- Two ducks
- Three squawking geese
- Four Limerick oysters
- Five corpulent porpoises
- Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers
- Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array
- Eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred crypts of Egypt
- Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller-skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth
- Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who all stall around the corner of the quo and quay of the quivery all at the same time
Now say that two times fast. It was to be repeated back in the style of a cumulative song, with each verse getting increasingly longer. There are of course several variants of the semi-legendary audition. More rhyming challenges from Futility Closet at the link up top.
