Oh! Yeah, I understand what you mean. "Black hole" (the astronomical entity) and "black hole" (a hole that is black) are said differently, but it takes a good e

Oh! Yeah, I understand what you mean. "Black hole" (the astronomical entity) and "black hole" (a hole that is black) are said differently, but it takes a good ear, and probably some training, for English speakers to notice. How interesting that speakers of (some) other languages detect that so "automatically"! There also are dialectical complications - some speakers tend to run words together more than others, or maybe use tone / stress rather than syllabic modifications to mark the changes - and I'd be interested to know the extent to which you notice those structures as well? Nevertheless, dictionaries (conventional ones, at least) concern themselves with written rather than spoken English, so I think my point stands. :-)