Minimal Pair List Vowels 13 and 20, / eɪ / versus / ʊə / 22 pairs

The / eɪ / diphthong is spelled <aCe>, <ai>, <ay> or <a> in the homograph bass . The / ʊə / diphthong is spelled <our>, <oor> or <ure>.

This is a contrast between two diphthongs. The starting positions are well separated and the direction of movement is different. Confusions are unlikely.

Interesting pairs include:

amaze amours
daily dourly

The density figure is 1.99%. The set makes 13 semantic contrasts giving a loading of 61.9%.

allay allure
  allayed allured
  allays allures
amaze amours   
baize boors
bane bourn
base bourse
  bases bourses
bass bourse
  basses bourses
bay boor
  bays boors
daily dourly	 
lay lure
  lays lures
made moored
maid moored
may moor
Mays moors		 
pay poor
spay spoor
  spays spoors

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.