even get into different pronunciations depending on what sounds precede or follow a word. Or a coupon shitstorm. posted by gjc at 5:08 PM on January 3 [ 2 favorites ] French spelling is notoriously difficult even for native speakers. Going from spoken to written French is notoriously difficult. Going from written to spoken French is quite easy, as it's quite regular. English, beyond having hard to predict pronunciation, has impossible to predict emphasis. (It took me years before someone took pity on me and told me that French has predictable stress.) I do not think Flower and Flour are distinct, and I bet if you recorded yourself saying just those two words, and played them back in random order, no one could predictably tell which one was which. Unless you pronounce flour 'flar', which I have never actually heard. posted by jeather at 5:13 PM on January 3 Flower/flour: It's the strength of the dipthong. Flower is more like FLOW-wer (ow like now or wow), and flour would be closer to FLAR (like jar or far). Sort of how "hour" and "our" can be pronounced slightly differently. ("Ar train leaves in an ow-er.") I've never heard anyone make that distinction in actual speech--though I can imagine someone doing that if they were elaborately pantomiming the distinction between the two words. In my experience, anyone who says "flar" for "flour" also says "flar" for "flower." My sociology professor in college enjoyed demonstrating to our Midwestern tin ears that "Mary", "merry"