[Vocabulary] the Wild West

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englishhobby

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Many tongue-twisters are odd, because they practice the same or similar sounds. It's impossible to be 'in the Wild West' in our times as 'the Wild West' is often referred to in wersterns with cowboys. What does 'the Wild West' mean for you today? Is it connected only to the past? Do you think this tongue-twister can be used in modern English coursebooks?

William always wears a very warm woollen vest in winter; Victor, however, will never wear woollen underwear, even in the Wild West.
 

bhaisahab

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Why do you want to use "Wild West" in your sentence? It's not a term we generally use to describe winter weather. On occasion, when living in Ireland, I heard the term used to describe the west of that country; the weather there is notorious for being very windy and wet, but otherwise I would associate it only with westerns.
 

emsr2d2

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There are too many additional words for that to be a good tongue twister. You have always/a/very/in/Victor/however/never/underwear/even/in/the, none of which start with "w". How about:

William wears warm winter woolies, whereas Walter wears white wooly wellies.

Don't be put off by the fact that it doesn't make sense (for example, wooly wellies don't exist). The point of a tongue twister is to make the speaker repeat the same letter or combination of letters as often as possible, very close together.

"W" isn't a common letter to use in a tongue twister in English because most people don't have a problem repeating the letter. It's not a difficult letter to say (unless you have a rhotacism).

As bhaisahab said, "Wild West" doesn't really fit, partly because of the connotation with Westerns (films) but also because you would need to use "in the" before it which messes up the flow of words starting with "w".
 

englishhobby

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And what about this variant: 'even in the wild winter'? Will the tongue-twister sound natural?

William always wears a very warm woollen vest in winter; Victor, however, will never wear woollen underwear, even in the wild winter.
:?:
 

englishhobby

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William wears warm winter woolies, whereas Walter wears white wooly wellies.
Thank you for the great tongue-twister!


most people don't have a problem repeating the letter. It's not a difficult letter to say

For lots of Russians it IS difficult, they mispronounce it replacing [W] by [V] (as we don't have [W] in Russian). And the point in that tongue-twister was also to practice saying [V] and [W] one after another. So your tongue-twister is really good and I am going to use it too (if you don't mind ;-)), but this tongue-twister should be specifically designed for Russian students of English and give them a chance to practice -v-w-v-w-v-w.
 

emsr2d2

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And what about this variant: 'even in the wild winter'? Will the tongue-twister sound natural?

William always wears a very warm woollen vest in winter; Victor, however, will never wear woollen underwear, even in the wild winter.
:?:

I have the same comments as I did before. You have twelve words which don't start with "w" and there are only 22 words in the whole thing. Fewer than 50% of the words start with the letter you're supposed to be repeating as often as possible.

Edit: I've just seen post #5. You didn't mention anything about it being a test of "v-w-v-w-v" in post #1.
 

GoesStation

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Tongue-twisters are always unnatural, so few people relate them to any real situation. The text you quote isn't a tongue-twister for a native Anglophone, but I'm sure it's a helpful practice text for people who speak certain languages.

The Wild West evokes both a place and an era.
 

englishhobby

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The text you quote isn't a tongue-twister for a native Anglophone, but I'm sure it's a helpful practice text for people who speak certain languages.

But I want it to be a tongue-twister for a native Anglophone :-(
 

englishhobby

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Edit: I've just seen post #5. You didn't mention anything about it being a test of "v-w-v-w-v" in post #1.

Sorry, I just didn't think about the sounds and their positions as I thought it was alright, I was focused on the meaning.
 

emsr2d2

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Sorry, I just didn't think about the sounds and their positions as I thought it was alright, I was focused on the meaning.

Meaning is almost irrelevant in tongue twisters.
 

englishhobby

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GoesStation

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I bet I can guess what kind of car Ms. Weaver drives. :)
 
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