Diphthong /ʊə/ versus null, 4 pairs     [annuals.html]

The /ʊə/ sound is spelled with <u>, <our> or <ur>.

As /ʊə/ is fairly rare, only occurring in 1053 words in the dictionary, this was a fairly easy list to work out manually. Since the diphthong is often preceded by a palatal semivowel /j/, there turned out to be very few pairing words when one deleted it. For example, in the pairs annuals/annals and furies/frizz, I have actually deleted /jʊə/ rather than /ʊə/, but I left these pairs in as they seemed interesting.

The density value and semantic loading are irrelevant with such a small and contentious list.

 	
annuals annals
furies frizz
touring Tring
Urdu do

John Higgins, Shaftesbury, December 2010,
updated Chiang Mai, May 2024