Minimal pairs

[Joel S. Berson]

My minimal instruction in minimal pairs (I took one semester of
comparative linguistics) taught me that "light-house keeper" and
"light house-keeper" were one (was one? were two?).  I now offer
another (here, since I no longer remember the name of the author of
the textbook, who included in it a solicitation of minimal pairs from
his readers):

"small-business woman" and "small business-woman".

(I do actually intend to say the former in conversation today.)

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org