(phonology) A phonemic merger occuring in most present accents of English where historic /ɛr/, /ɪr/, /ʊr~ʌr/ are pronounced identically.
[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 Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer […][1], volume I, London: Published for the Philological Society by Asher & Co., page 202:
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 pedantry […]]
[1967, Bertil Hedevind, The Dialect of Dentdale in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Uppsala: Appelbergs Boktryckeri AB, § 4.8, page 98:
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).]
1982, J. C. Wells, “3.1 Residualisms”, in Accents of English, volume 1: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 200:
In most Scottish accents the nurse merger has not occured, or has only partially occurred.
