In 1933, Enrico Fermi, teaching at a summer school for theoretical physics at the University of Michigan, was joined by fellow Italian physicist Emilio Gino Segre. In their spare time, they toured the Michigan countryside in a used car (which they called "The Flying Turtle"). Told that their pronunciation of English in general -- and of the "r" sound in particular -- required improvement, the colleagues repeated a certain phrase at least twelve times a day. The phrase? "Rear Admiral Byrd wrote a report concerning his travels in the southern part of the Earth."
Sources
American Institute of Physics Handbook
