Lammert et al. | 2020

— Purpose —

“The present article provides a quantitative comparison of the phonetic balance of widely used passages in English.”

— Findings —

Phonetic Coverage vs Phonetic Balance
— Phonetic coverage = having at least one example of each phoneme represented in the passage
— Phonetic balance = having phonemes represented in a specific proportion (i.e. according to frequency of occurrence in typical spoken language

Conclusions
— “The Caterpillar and The Rainbow Passage provided the best overall phonetic balance from among the passages considered.”
— “Full phonetic coverage is achieved by The Caterpillar and The Rainbow Passage, but not by My Grandfather and The Northwind and the Sun.”

— Sentences with full phonetic coverage in English —

— Your good pants look great, however, your ripped pants look like a cheap version of a K-Mart special. Is that oil staining on them?

— The girl was thirsty and drank some juice, followed by a coke.

— Citation —

Lammert, A. C., Melot, J., Sturim, D. E., Hannon, D. J., DeLaura, R., Williamson, J. R., Ciccarelli, G., & Quatieri, T. F. (2020). Analysis of Phonetic Balance in Standard English Passages. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(4), 917–930.