Minimal Pair List Vowels 11 and 20, /3/ versus / ʊə / 14 pairs
The /3/ vowel is spelled with <er>, <ir>, <ear>, <ur>, and <yr> in
myrrh
. The /
ʊə
/ diphthong is spelled <our> and <oor>.
This is a contrast between a long vowel and a diphthong. The starting positions are fairly close, but there is a difference of lip-rounding, so it causes no problems for learners.
Interesting pairs include:
pearly poorly
Shirley surely
The density figure is 1.33%. The set makes 10 semantic contrasts giving a loading of 71.4%.
burn bourn
burns bourns
burr boor
burrs boors
gird gourd
girds gourds
myrrh Moor
pearly poorly
per poor
Shirley surely
spur spoor
spurs spoors
turd toured
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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.
