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⟨oo⟩
⟨oo⟩ is an unsplit vowel digraph consisting of a double O.
There are two ways in which this is pronounced; as the ꜰᴏᴏᴛ vowel phoneme /ʊ/ or the ɢᴏᴏꜱᴇ vowel phoneme /uː/. In some accents, these are merged as the ꜰᴏᴏᴛ–ɢᴏᴏꜱᴇ merger.
⟨oor⟩ and ⟨ool⟩ are dealt with separately.
Table[edit | edit source]
Phoneme | Example words | Notes |
---|---|---|
ɢᴏᴏꜱᴇ vowel phoneme /uː/ |
|
Set 2 has ⟨oo⟩ at the ends of words. |
ꜰᴏᴏᴛ vowel phoneme /ʊ/ | Never occurs at the ends of words. | |
Either ɢᴏᴏꜱᴇ or ꜰᴏᴏᴛ, depending on accent |
| |
ɢᴏᴀᴛ vowel | brooch | Only exception |
Variant pronunciations[edit | edit source]
In the 1920s and earlier, the more usual pronunciation of room was probably /rʊm/. In the United Kingdom in 1988, 81% pronounced /ruːm/. In the United States in 1993 the figure was higher: 93%.[1]
Other examples: bedroom, blooming (swear word), broom, groom, hoof[2], mushroom, roof[3], room, roomy, root (only as a variant in American English)[4]
Different syllables[edit | edit source]
⟨oo⟩ superficially occurs across syllable boundaries, in which case it’s not a digraph. To avoid the appearance of a digraph, a hyphen is often used, e.g. co-operate, micro-organism, etc.
By orthographic convention, the pronoun no one is spelt as two different words, even though it functions as a single word. (*noone is a misspelling).
Homophones[edit | edit source]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ John Well’s phonetic blog, room, now and then, 22 September 2010.
- ↑ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hoof
- ↑ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/roof
- ↑ http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/root