Porn - pawn

To confuse these two words is an example of the intrusive 'r'. However, the natural speech of most British speakers of English does not allow a clear enough pronunciation of the letter r to distinguish between them. They sound exactly the same in the mouths of most British natives, i.e., both are pronounced IPA: /'pɔːn/.

• Porn is an informal contraction for pornography - sexually explicit material in writing or in pictures.

• To pawn something is to give it as security against a loan. Poor people sometimes borrowed money in a hard week by leaving a valued possession, such as a watch, at a pawnbrokers or pawnshop for a sum of money. By paying back the loan, plus a sum of interest, they would reclaim their property. If they did not repay the money, they forfeited the pledge. People in a higher rank of society who wanted to hide the fact that they were no longer rich might pawn or pledge more valuable items, such as jewellery, in order to raise some cash. The habit (and possibly the need) is perhaps less common in Britain than it was.