and partly from later mergers of the centering diphthongs and long vowels that resulted from the loss of . The phenomenon that occurs in many dialects of the United States is one of tense–lax neutralization in which the normal English distinction between tense and lax vowels is eliminated. In some cases, the quality of a vowel before is different from the quality of the vowel elsewhere. For example, in some dialects of American English, the quality of the vowel in more typically does not occur except before , and it is somewhere in between the vowels of maw and mow. It is similar to the vowel of the latter word but without the glide. It is important to note, however, that different mergers occur in different dialects. Among United States accents, the Boston, Eastern New England and New York accents have the lowest degree of pre-rhotic merging. Some have observed that rhotic North American accents are more likely to have such merging than non-rhotic accents, but that cannot be said of rhotic British accents like Scottish English, which is firmly rhotic but has many varieties with the same vowel contrasts before as before any other consonant. Mergers before intervocalic R Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before and so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare," "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere," "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for," and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second syllable of "letter". The mergers are typically resisted by non-rhotic North Americans and are largely absent in areas of the United States that are historically largely nonrhotic. Hurry–furry merger The hurry–furry merger occurs when the vowel before intervocalic is merged with . That is particularly a feature in many dialects of North American English but not New York City English, Mid-Atlantic American English, older Southern American English, some speakers of Eastern New England English, and speakers of Southeastern New England English. Speakers with the merger pronounce hurry to rhyme with furry and turret to rhyme with stir it. To occur, the merger requires the nurse mergers to be in full effect, which is the case outside the British Isles. In Scotland, hurry is a perfect rhyme of furry , but there is no merger since the vowel has never developed because