Minimal Pair List Vowels 6 and 18, / ɒ / versus / ɪə / 27 pairs

The / ɒ / vowel is spelled <o>, or <a> after <w> or <qu> in wad and quad . The / ɪə / diphthong is spelled <ear>, <eir>, <eer>, or <ir> in the loan word kirsch . The dictionary search also found the pair proton/protean , but it is questionable whether protean contains the / ɪə / diphthong or is a three-syllable word.

This contrast is between a short back vowel and a front centering diphthong. It is not a problem for any learners.

Interesting pairs include:

porridge peerage
quarry query
warrior wearier

The density value is small at 0.67%. The pairs make 21 semantic contrasts, giving a high loading of 77.8%.

body beardie
  bodied bearded 
clod cleared 
cosh kirsch
Dolly dearly
fosse fierce 
god geared
horror hearer 
  horrors hearers 
Molly merely
nod neared 
oz ears 
pod peered 
porridge peerage 
proton protean 
quad queered
quarry query
  quarried queried
  quarries queries
  quarrying querying
rod reared
shod sheared 
wad weird
wadi weirdie
  wadis weirdies
warrior wearier
was weirs

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.