Minimal Pair List Vowels 3 and 8, /e/ versus / ʊ / 50 pairs

The /e/ vowel is spelled <e>, or <ea> in head . The vowel / ʊ / is spelled with <u> or <oo> except for <ou> in should and <oe>in the loan word stoep .

Both vowels are short but are far enough apart for the distinction to cause no problems.

The mean density is 0.8%. The pairs make 24 semantic contrasts, giving a loading of 48%.

beck book
  becks books
bell bull
  bells bulls
belle bull
  belles bulls
belly bully
  bellied bullied
  bellies bullies
  bellying bullying
fell full
fetid footed
fetter footer
  fetters footers
head hood
  headed hooded
  heading hooding
  heads hoods
heck hook
  hecks hooks
Maidenhead maidenhood
neck nook
  necks nooks
pellet pullet
  pellets pullets
pet put
  petting putting
  pets puts
recce rookie
  recces rookies
Rex rooks
set soot
  sets soots
  setting sooting
shed should
stead stood
step stoep
  steps stoeps
steppe stoep
  steppes stoeps
Tech took
wed wood
  wedded wooded
  weds woods
well wool
  wells wools
wreck rook 
  wrecked rooked 
  wrecking rooking 
  wrecks rooks

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.