There sure are a lot of homonyms in the English language.
One/won
two/too/to
four/for
eight/ate
road/rode
read/reed
aunt/ant
gnu/knew/new
know/no
your/you're
there/their/they're
wine/whine
son/sun
oh/owe
bye/buy/by
hugh/hew
caught/cot
where/wear
threw/through
blew/blue
Mary/marry/merry
toe/tow
catch/ketch
so/sew
bow/bough
quart/court
flower/flour
I/eye
you/ewe
caramel/Carmel
manner/manor
wants/once
collar/caller
higher/hire
our/hour
aisle/isle/I'll
do/due
cereal/serial
or/oar
pour/poor
tax/tacks
balm/bomb
There are a lot of homonyms, but the following are not in my accent:
caught/cot, catch/ketch, wants/once, collar/caller, balm/bomb
Ben/been
sense/cents
sent/cent/scent
bow/bough
clothes/close
be/bee
In what accent are ben/been and clothes/close homonyms?
As mentioned above it all depends on accent. Here're the words from your list that are no homonyms in my accent.
aunt/ant
caught/cot
Mary/marry
Mary/merry
marry/merry
catch/ketch
quart/court
caramel/Carmel
wants/once
collar/caller
our/hour
do/due
balm/bomb
Ben/been
clothes/close
Also, we could extend the "w"/"wh" list to.
wine/whine
wear/where
witch/which
weather/whether
Wales/whales
However there as those for whom "w" and "wh" represent different sounds.
How about this list of homonyms?
court/caught
or/ore/oar/awe
lore/law
shore/sure/Shaw
poor/pour/paw
porn/pawn
fort/fought
torque/talk
due/dew/jew
duke/juke
dune/june
farther/father
Well, I don't know about you but these work for me.
Here are some more:
aren't/aunt
metre/meter
pore/poor/pour/paw
tort/taught
sore/saw
nor/gnaw
core/caw
more/maw
sought/sort
source/sauce
sword/sawed
sores/saws
cores/cause
pores/pours/paws/pause
floor/flaw
roar/raw
Ben and been are pronounced the same. Both as [ben].
About ''close'' and ''clothes''. I'm an American and pronounce them both as ''kloaz''.
That's interesting. I pronounce "Ben" as [ben], "been" as [bin], "close" as [klo:z], and "clothes" as [klo:THz]. What part of the US are you from?
I pronounce those words the same way as Eastie.
I know that certain Commonwealth speakers pronounce "been" as [bi:n], but I don't think I've ever heard it pronounced [ben].
As I've been trying to point out, it all depends on your accent. What are homonyms for you might not be for me. For example, here's how I pronounce those words.
"been" = [bi:n]
"ben" = [ben]
"close" = [klOuz]
"clothes" = [klOuTHz]
They're not homonyms for me but my accent isn't the be all and end all of it either. Of course it doesn't really count for anything but at least I pronounce "been" and "clothes" the way they are spelt (or at least they way they'd seem to be spelt).
Oh, for you ''been'' and ''bin'' are homonyms, not'' been'' and ''Ben''. Well, the dictionary does list [bin] as the ''been'' pronunciation, but some people say [ben].
Come to think of it I might say [bin] for "been" in a sentence if I'm speaking fast but not if I say the word in isolation.