Vowels and diphthongs NURSE and NORTH

These are merged for older/working-class speakers in Tyneside and Northumberland, where, in traditional dialects the vowel in NURSE words has been retracted to  . Påhlsson (1972) explains this retraction as having been caused by “burr-modification”, the effect of the following uvular , or Northumbrian burr, prior to loss of rhoticity in this dialect. This merger is a stereotypical feature of Tyneside and Northumbrian dialects, often referred to in humorous dialect literature. However, recent research shows that the retracted pronunciation of NURSE is found mostly in the speech of older, male speakers, whilst a front, rounded variant  is found in the speech of younger women in particular (Watt and Milroy 1999).