Minimal Pair List Vowels 4 and 15, /æ/ versus / ɔɪ / 33 pairs

The /æ/ vowel is spelled <a> followed by two consonants or by one consonant in a monosyllable. The / ɔɪ / diphthong is spelled <oi> or <oy>.

This contrast is between a short vowel and a diphthong with the sounds well separated in the mouth, so it should not cause any problems.

Interesting pairs include:

dally doily
tracker troika

Since the / ɔɪ / is very infrequent in the language, the density value is unexpectedly high at 4.2%. The pairs make 20 semantic contrasts, giving a loading of 60.1%.

Al oil
Ali oily
aster oyster
  asters oysters
bad buoyed
caff coif
  caffs coifs
can coign
  cans coigns
can coin
  cans coins
  canned coined
  canning coining
canna coiner
  cannas coiners
cat quoit
  cats quoits
clad cloyed
dally doily
  dallies doilies
grand groined
hast hoist
Jan join
jazz joys
lads Lloyd's 
latter loiter
massed moist
pant point
  panted pointed
  panting pointing
  pants points   
tracker troika
  trackers troikas

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.