Before we get to those, however, let us consider how we might discover a vowel merger taking place (and most work in this area has been on vowel merger or on conditioned vowel mergers, such as the pin–pen merger in the US south or the pool–pull merger in Utah, discussed below).

He is dead to me.

The senator's comments outraged the community.

They took a swig each from an old bottle of sherry and ate some stale digestive biscuits sealed in a tin in the mouse-riddled cupboards.