The short vowels NURSE

Acoustic studies of the NURSE vowel show it overlapping with the GOOSE vowel. This implies a very close pronunciation of NURSE, perhaps [ ø ] . Impressionistically, this seems like quite a broad pronunciation, with more open variants being more prestigious. Given this overlap, it becomes an open question as to how GOOSE and NURSE are distinguished; there does not appear to be any merger, and yet the difference in diphthongization is not necessarily present. There may be a potential or incipient merger here: personalized car number plates show re-spellings such as 2MIN8OR for ‘terminator’ suggesting that a NURSE-GOOSE merger is on the cards.

Particularly in formal or slow speech, NURSE is used in many positions where RP would have /ə/, notably where it corresponds to an <er> orthography.