Minimal Pair List Consonants /z/ versus /h/, 26 pairs
The /z/ sound is spelled with <z>. The /h/ sound is spelled with <h> or <wh> in
who
.
This is a contrast between a voiced alveolar sibilant fricative and a voiceless glottal fricative which can only occur initially. It is not a problem.
Interesting pairs include:
zephyr heifer
zither hither
The mean density value is very low at 0.2%. The list makes 15 semantic distinctions, a loading of 58%.
Z head
Z's heads
zap hap
zapped happed
zapping happing
zaps haps
zealot helot
zealots helots
zee he
Zen hen
zephyr heifer
zephyrs heifers
zero hero
zeros heroes
zip hip
zips hips
zippy hippy
zither hither
zone hone
zoned honed
zones hones
zoning honing
zoo Hoo
zoo who
zoom whom
zoos whose
.
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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.
