so covers both and one of the vowels, and some varieties of Irish English. John C. Wells calls it briefly the merger. The three separate vowels are retained by some speakers of Scottish English. What has been called the term–nurse merger is resisted by some speakers of Irish English, but the full merger is found in almost all other dialects of English. In local working-class Dublin, the West and South-West Region, and other very conservative and traditional varieties in Ireland, ranging from the south to the north of the island, the typical English phoneme actually retains an opposition as two separate phonemes: and . For example, the words earn and urn are pronounced differently in those traditional varieties: as vowel after a labial consonant, as in fern; when it is spelled as "ur" or "or", as in word; or when it is spelled as "ir" after an alveolar stop, as in dirt. In all other cases, the vowel is then pronounced as . Examples with include certain , chirp , circle , earn , earth , girl , germ , heard or herd , irk , and tern . Examples for include bird , dirt , first , murder , nurse , turn , third or turd , urn , work , and world . In non-local middle- and upper-class Dublin and in younger and supraregional Irish accents, the difference is seldom preserved, and both variants of are typically merged as , the same as or similar to most American accents. In Scottish English, a distinct nurse or fur vowel is also used in these cases: The spelling in words like , , , , , , , , , , and . The surviving (barring the hurry–furry merger) can be compared to words like . The spelling in words like , , , , , , and . The surviving (barring the hurry–furry merger) can be compared to words like , , and . In Scottish English, a distinct term or fern vowel is used in these cases: (past tense of to be) Words like , , , , , Earp, , , , Hearst, , , , , , and . merger Some older Southern American English varieties and some of England's West Country dialects have a partial merger of . They generally pronounce as , which rhymes with (compare general English realisations of cue and coo). Words