Minimal Pair List Vowels 16 and 20, / əʊ / versus / ʊə / 20 pairs

The / əʊ / diphthong is spelled <oCe>, <oe>, <oa>, <ow>, and <eau> in beau . The / ʊə / diphthong is spelled <ure>, <oor> or <our>.

This is a contrast between two diphthongs with different starting positions and direction of movement. In fact they form an almost perfect reversal; record one and play it back reversed and it will sound like the other (which is a very good way to persuade students that / əʊ / is a diphthong). It is not a problem for learners.

The density figure is 1.9%. The set makes 11 semantic contrasts giving a loading of 55%.

	  
beau boor
  beaux boors
bow boor
  bows boors  
bone bourn
  bones bourns
goad gourd
  goads gourds
lode lured
low lure
  lows lures
  lowed lured
mode moored
mow moor
  mows moors 
toad toured
toe tour
  toes tours
tow tour
  tows tours  

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.