Minimal Pair List Vowels 10 and 15, /ʌ/ versus / ɔɪ / 30 pairs

The /ʌ/ vowel is spelled with <u> throughout. The / ɔɪ / vowel is spelled <oi> or <oy>.

This is a contrast between a short vowel and a diphthong with fairly close starting positions but distinguished by lip-rounding. It does not seem to be a problem for many learners.

Interesting pairs include:

cluster cloister
cunning coining

The density figure is 3.82%. The set makes 15 semantic contrasts giving a loading of 50%.

bud buoyed
buzz boys 	 
buzzbuoys
cluster cloister 
  clustered cloistered 
  clustering cloistering 
  clusters cloisters 
cuff coif 
  cuffs coifs 
cull coil 
  culled coiled 
  culling coiling 
  culls coils 
cunning coining 
cut quoit
  cuts quoits
fussed foist 
gutter goitre 
  gutters goitres 
just joist 
mull moil 
  mulled moiled 
  mulls moils 
mussed moist 
punt point 
  punted pointed 
  punting pointing 
  punts points 
punter pointer 
  punters pointers 

John Higgins

John Higgins retired in 2000, having spent the bulk of his career as a British Council English Language Officer working in Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia and the last fifteen years in lectureships at Bristol University and then running an M.Sc. programme at Stirling University. His main field was EFL, with a special interest in CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in which, together with Tim Johns of Birmingham, he was responsible for important developments in methods and materials. His publications include A Guide to Language Laboratory Material Writing, Universitetesforlaget, 1969, Computers and Language Learning, Collins, 1984, Language Learners and Computers, Longman, 1988, and Computers in English Language Learning, Intellect Press, 1992, together with numerous papers, reviews and pieces of software. He maintains a web page on minimal pairs and homographs for teachers of English pronunciation skills.