nurse merger

Noun

nurse merger

1. A phonemic merger occuring in most present accents of English where historic /ɛr/, /ɪr/, /ʊr~ʌr/ are pronounced identically.
   • Another point on which Smart insists is the distinction between serf and surf […] A distinction can of course be made, and without much difficulty, by those who think of it, and is made by those who have formed a habit of doing so; but the distinction is so rarely made as to amount almost to...[1869, Alexander John Ellis, “III. On the Pronunciation of English in the Sixteenth Century, and its Gradual Change during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, in On Early English...
   • Levelling of ME /irC/ and /urC/, which Orton assumes for the whole of the North (S. Durham §§411-13), has not taken place in Dent and S.We, where ME /urC/ remains (4:46).[1967, Bertil Hedevind, The Dialect of Dentdale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Uppsala: Appelbergs Boktryckeri AB, § 4.8, page 98