Motivation

Since I am a Slovakian, my native tongue does not have the TH sound that is ubiquitous in English in the pronunciation repertoire. As a result, when learning the English language, it is of paramount importance to master both the voiced the unvoiced variation of the TH to significantly enhance how the speaker sounds. Even though it is not a panacea for everything, especially if the endeavor is to suppress the underlying accent, it is, by all means, a substantial leap forward to achieving more pleasant speaking experience.

All in all, I like the language itself, so why not learn it properly, right? In what follows, I present some purely fabricated story that is supposed to convey a reasonable plot, but, more importantly, it is written in a way to exercise the TH sound by incorporating it as many times as possible in this short text. For the best experience, read it out loud, especially if you’re not native, like me!

The story itself: “The Theft of the Thorny Roses”

A theft has been reported to have happened on Thanksgiving Day in a well-thriving theater at three a. m. The theater is situated on the northern side of South Carolina. The thief, named Thomas Thachedath, is a thirty-three year old man who threatened this day in his thin thesis with the theme “The Theft of Thorny Roses”, a hitherto unassuming treatise dismissed beneath the surface of public attention as everyone thought that he would not carry out that deed.

However, he decided to fulfill the act this Thursday to quench his thirst for the theft. Thanks to his thorough, in-depth knowledge of the security within the theater, the crime was thereby attainable. “That must have been a thrilling act for him. He thought he could get through his moral threshold and get away with it,” says the chief of the police department, Arthur Keith.

The police authorities state that an unfathomable thirty-three thousand and three hundred and thirty-three thorny roses were stolen. They were thrown out through the three windows and then taken away by car through a three-lane road that raced into adverse weather conditions.

Although we think that the number of thorny roses set forth in the press is exaggerated, they claim that this is allegedly the truth. Nevertheless, something is wrong. A thoughtful reader who thinks about this for a few seconds realizes that this simply interferes with logic Therefore, this article should be treated as a theory thought up by the police authorities.

To reveal the truth, nothing has been stolen in the end, thankfully. This preposterous act of misinformation could be thought of as an attempt to threaten the peace of Thanksgiving Day. The “thief” was a guy detested by one-third of the town’s population. Their loathing is exhibited throughout the thoroughly intact and biased community. They say he should visit a therapist in order to get over his problems. On the other hand, he says they should think about themselves in the first place. Thus, he should take a deep breath and come to terms with their stance. Notwithstanding the truthfulness (or lack thereof) of this story, you would rather read a thousand times about a fake theft than once about a real one, don’t you think?

Author: Milan Ondrašovič, “The Theory” magazine, 22. 01. 2023.