In March 1939, students at McGill University dictated this sentence to a dozen faculty members:

Outside a cemetery sat a harassed cobbler and an embarrassed oculist, picknicking on a desiccated apple, and gazing at the symmetry of a lady’s ankle with unparalleled ecstasy.

The participants included three English professors, the head of the journalism department, and a proofreading instructor.

Only Esther Korstad, instructor of typewriting and shorthand, spelled everything correctly. The average participant misspelled 4.25 words.

A duel was lately fought in Texas by Alexander Shott and John S. Nott. Nott was shot, and Shott was not. In this case it is better to be Shott than Nott.

There was a rumor that Nott was not shot, and Shott avers that he shot Nott, which proves either that the shot Shott shot at Nott was not shot, or that Nott was shot notwithstanding.

Circumstantial evidence is not always good. It may be made to appear on trial that the shot Shott shot shot Nott, or, as accidents with fire-arms are frequent, it may be possible that the shot Shott shot shot Shott himself, when the whole affair would resolve itself into its original elements, and Shott would be shot, and Nott would not. We think, however, that the shot Shott shot shot not Shott, but Nott; anyway, it is hard to tell who was shot.

— Guy Steeley, The Modern Elocutionist or Popular Speaker, 1900

In Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II, one of the king’s gaolers receives a message reading Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est. This can be read either as Edwardum occidere nolite; timere bonum est (“Do not kill Edward; it is good to be afraid [to do so]”) or as Edwardum occidere nolite timere; bonum est (“Do not be afraid to kill Edward; [to do so] is good”). The king is killed.

In 1213, John, Archbishop of Esztergom, was pressed to make a statement to Hungarian nobles planning the assassination of Gertrude of Merania. An assassination would have aided the church, but taking a role in it might have imperiled John’s position and his life. He wrote Reginam occidere nolite timere bonum est si omnes consentiunt ego non contradico, which also has two contradictory meanings depending on its punctuation. Reginam occidere nolite timere; bonum est; si omnes consentiunt, ego non contradico means “Do not fear to kill the queen, it is right; if everyone agrees, I do not oppose it,” but Reginam occidere nolite; timere bonum est; si omnes consentiunt, ego non; contradico means “Do not kill the queen; it is good to fear [doing so]; [even] if everyone agrees, I do not; I oppose it.” The queen, too, was murdered.

According to the Guardian (March 1872), Lord Palmerston once dictated this sentence to 11 British cabinet ministers, “not one of whom, it is said, spelled it correctly”:

It is disagreeable to witness the embarrassment of a harassed peddler gauging the symmetry of a peeled potato.

“And Lord R. Cecil, in the House of Commons, some time ago, quoted the following lines which he said were given as a dictation exercise by an assistant commissioner to the children of a school in Ipswich”:

While hewing yew, Hugh lost his ewe,
And put it in the Hue and Cry,
To name its face’s dusky hues
Was all the effort he could use.
You brought the ewe back, by-and-by,
And only begged the hewer’s ewer,
Your hands to wash in water pure,
Lest nice-nosed ladies, not a few,
Should cry, on coming near you, “Ugh!”

The French phrase ouate de phoque (“seal’s cotton wool”) sounds like what the fuck in English.

For whatever that’s worth.

Listen to the pronunciation file here.

Demetri Martin composed this palindromic poem as part of a project for a fractal geometry class at Yale in spring 1993. The first two and last two lines are palindromes, the middle line (“Be still if I fill its ebb”) minus its last letter is a palindrome, and the entire poem is a palindrome:

Dammit I’m mad
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled?
I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas it is so late. Who stops to help? Man, it is hot.

I’m in it.
I tell.
I am not a devil.
I level “Mad Dog”.

Ah, say burning is as a deified gulp
in my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open.
On it I was stuck.

Rats peed on hope.
Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider … eh?
We sleep.

Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one … my names are in it. Murder?
I’m a fool. A hymn I plug,
Deified as a sign in ruby ash – a Goddam level I lived at.

On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots.
Oh, wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog.”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.

“Improprieties in pronunciation” among the people of New England in 1808, collected by Caleb Bingham and published in The Child’s Companion:

afraid:          afeard
apron:           apun
audacious:       outdacious
bonfire:         burnfire
brittle:         brickle
cards:           cairds
caught:          cotch
coin:            quine
cucumber:        cowcumber
dictionary:      dixonary
drain:           dreen
earth:           airth
fanciful:        fancical
five pence:      fippence
gown:            gound
grasshopper:     hoppergrass
jaundice:        janders
musician:        musicianer
poplar:          popple
quart:           quairt
quotient:        coshun
sassafras:       saxafax
turtle:          turcle
tutor:           tutorer
umbrella:        amberrillar
Vermont:         Vermount
walnut:          warnut
watermelon:      watermillion

“It is not to be supposed that they are all in common use in every part of New England. Some of them are local. In general, however, they are used more or less in all the New England States.”