Pour-poor and cure-fir mergers

In Modern English dialects, the reflexes of Early Modern English {} and are highly susceptible to merger with other vowels. Words belonging to this class are most commonly spelled with oor, our, ure, or eur; examples include poor, tour, cure, Europe. Wells 1982 refers to this class as the CURE words.

In the most conservative varieties of Received Pronunciation and General American, CURE words are pronounced with RP ( before a vowel) and GenAm . But these pronunciations are being replaced by other pronunciations in many English accents.

In English English it is very common to pronounce CURE words with , so that moor is often pronounced , tour , poor , (Wells 1982: 56, 65–66, 164, 237, 287–88). A similar merger is encountered in many varieties of American English, where the pronunciations / (depending on whether the accent is rhotic or non-rhotic) or prevail. (Kenyon 1951: 233–34; Wells 1982: 549).

In East Anglia a merger with the of shirt is common, especially after palatal and palatoalveolar consonants, so that sure is often pronounced ; yod dropping may apply as well, yielding pronounciations such as for pure. Similarly in American English sure is often pronounced (Wells 1982: 164). Other American pronunciations showing this merger include pure, curious, bureau, mural (M. Hammond 1999: 52).

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