Games, Toys, Puzzles, Quiz, Tests, Hobbies etc

[winston]

English Pronunciation

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!



Source: English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

[winston]

Dangerous Xmas Toys

We all remember that line from A Christmas Story: "No, you'll shoot your eye out."

And moms have been saying "No" about dangerous toys like BB guns and air rifles to generations of kids.

But how about "harmless" things like the Alphabet Zoo pull toy, or the Dora the Explorer backpack, or even something as simple as a rubber ducky?

Even those "safe" sounding playthings made it to the list of dangerous toys this year. Two groups, U.S. PIRG and WATCH (World Against Toys Causing Harm) scan the shelves every year looking for things that are too dangerous for kids to toy around with.

Along with choking and ingestion hazards, like a "bouncy" ball that is smaller than a choke test cylinder, and shopping cart play sets that contain small parts, several popular toys were found to contain high levels of toxic chemicals.

U.S. PIRG found the Dora the Explorer backpack had 200,000 ppm of the dangerous chemical DEHP, something that is only permitted in kids' toys up to 1,000 ppm!

The backpack also contained a high amount of another chemical called DINP, which experts are saying is so dangerous it should be banned entirely.

Kids (and adults!) can come into contact with these "plasticizers" by touching them and then putting their fingers in their mouth or eating something without washing their hands.

Other findings were a sheriff's badge play set that contained high amounts of lead, and an innocent looking leopard pattern rubber duck with an over-the-limit amount of DINP.

Of course the usual "action" toys, things that shoot objects across rooms (including something called a "Catapencil" used to slingshot a sharp pencil!), scooters, and other moving toys made the list, too.

But the most frightening ones were the dangerous toys being sold for babies and toddlers.

One is the Alphabet Zoo rock & stack pull toy for babies sold at Toys R US.

It has a cord measuring 20 inches -- long enough to be a strangulation hazard. Playpen toys can only be 12 inches long, but this one skirts the rules as it's considered a "pull toy."

Another baby item found at Toys R US is a stuffed green plush hedgehog doll that WATCH says can be a choking hazard because the pink fuzzy hair is easily pulled out.

Among the kinds of items the group says should be avoided are:
Any toys that are to be strung across cribs or playpens.
Toys for babies and toddlers with strings longer than 6 inches.
Dolls with fur or hair that can be ingested by toddlers.
Any toys that have bells, knobs or anything at the end of laces and strings that a kid could remove.
So don't think something is "safe" just because it's cute and cuddly or because it made it to the toy store shelf. It seems that a recall or ban won't happen until a child is seriously injured or killed.

To see the WATCH "worst" toy list of 2014, click here.
http://toysafety.org/portfolio_category ... orst-toys/

Source: HSI

[winston]

Toys That Help Kids Become Global Leaders

No one really knows how to prepare our children for a workplace that none of us can imagine, says Jenni Choi, Quartz. Thankfully there are great toys and games to help with an arguably more pressing task: building executive function.

Strengthening a child’s ability to plan and tweak projects is a core area that will help them succeed in the workforce no matter how it turns out.

Here are six favorites that make solid work out of play for your future global leader:
Executive Skill #1: Self-awareness and adaptability
Empathy Toy — ages 6 and up – Twenty-One Toys — $90 and above

What started as a thesis project to design a navigational aid for the blind in Canada quickly became a classroom favorite for young children. In this wooden puzzle game, players learn to understand each other by describing without seeing. A blindfolded builder recreates a pattern of puzzle pieces assembled for a blindfolded guide, who must describe the unseen pattern to the builder. Sound complicated? It is, but there’s more to learn from the journey than the answer. It’s all about using creativity to problem-solve and adjust to change.

This is one of those rare toys that works for everyone—from adults to young children. Pasi Sahlberg, a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, says its beauty is being difficult without killing the fun: “It doesn’t put you in a situation where you have to be afraid of failing.”

http://qz.com/302023/toys-that-help-kid ... l-leaders/

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Watch the Latest Must-Have Smart Toys Unveiled at Asia’s Largest Toy Fair
http://time.com/3671183/smart-toys-asia ... hong-kong/

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Monopoly set being released with real money
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/03/livin ... index.html

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Singapore famous liao......

Cheryl's Birthday: Singapore's maths puzzle baffles world
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32297367

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Quiz: How logical are you?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science ... e-you.html

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Awesome trick shots using Oreos and a glass of milk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filt ... -milk.html

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【親子籽】紙皮如此多Fun
http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/supplemen ... 6/19148750

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How to solve Hannah's Sweets: a former GCSE maths teacher (and Ukip MEP) explains
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11 ... lains.html