Try reading out these short poems. Easy? Then try to say them more quickly …
A flea and a fly flew up in a flue.
Said the flea, “Let us fly!”
Said the fly, “Let us flee!”
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?
A noisy noise annoys an oyster
Ned Nott was shot and Sam Shott was not.
So it is better to be Shott than Nott.
Some say Nott was not shot.
But Shott says he shot Nott.
Either the shot Shott shot at Nott was not shot, or Nott was shot.
If the shot Shott shot shot Nott, Nott was shot.
But if the shot Shott shot shot Shott, then Shott was shot, not Nott.
However, the shot Shott shot shot not Shott – but Nott.
Thieves seize skis.
A bloke’s back bike brake-block broke.
Once upon a barren moor
There dwelt a bear, also a boar.
The bear could not bear the boar.
The boar thought the bear a bore.
At last the bear could bear no more
Of that boar that bored him on the moor,
And so one morn he bored the boar –
That boar will bore the bear no more.
Betty Botter had some butter,
“But”, she said, “this butter’s bitter.
If I bake this bitter butter
it would make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter –
that would make my batter better”.
So she bought a bit of butter
(better than her bitter butter),
and she baked it in her batter,
and the batter was not bitter.
So ’twas better Betty Botter
bought a bit of better butter.
She sells sea shells by the seashore.
The shells she sells are surely seashells.
So if she sells shells on the seashore,
I’m sure she sells seashore shells.