Minimal Pair List Consonant /ʒ/ versus null, 25 pairs
The /ʒ/ sound is spelled with <ge>, <su>, <si> in suasion , <zu> in seizure or <j> in jabot .
The /ʒ/ sound is one of the rarest RP consonant phonemes, only occurring in 334 words in this dictionary, of which many are fairly recent loan words from French. In several cases deleting /ʒ/ when it followed /e/ and preceded a schwa left behind a word containing the /eə/ diphthong, such as measure/mare . It is disputable if these pairs are minimal, or whether deleting /eə/ before syllabic -n as in lesion/lean yields a true minimal pair since two syllables are then reduced to one. The contrast is not a problem.
The density value is 2.9%. The list makes 8 semantic distinctions, a loading of 80%.
beige bay beige bey Bruges brew jabot Abo jabots Abos leisure lair leisured laird lesion lean lesions leans Limoges limo luge lieu luge loo measure mare measures mares measure mayor measures mayors rouge roo rouge rue rouged rued rouging ruing rouged rood rouged rude seizure seer seizures seers suasion swain
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