I could be wrong about this but I think it explains your quandry.  See
below:

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 11:52 PM, Mike Hoy <mhoy06@gmail.com> wrote:

> my hard drive has /home on a different partition
> it was failing fsck and to simplify I backed up my /home contents to a
> backup hdd and then set it up again
>
> how to I use 'bash' when /etc/shells already shows me using /bin/bash?
>
> vim /home/dio/.bashrc
> alias clearl="clear && ls -l"
> ~$ clearl
> -bash: clearl: command not found
> in terminal
>
Since you did not source your new .bashrc, your current shell does not know
about the change.  You needed to do ". .bashrc" without the quotes.

> ~$ echo $SHELL
> /bin/bash
>
> so I change to bash anyway:
> ~$ bash
> ~$ clearl  (works fine)
>
Since you started a new shell with explicitly running bash, that bash
re-initialized and saw your alias so it worked.

>
> I've done this:
>
> chsh -s /bin/bash
> password ***
> no luck
>
This is less clear what all you did in between, but if you are still in the
original terminal and its shell, you still have not re-sourced .bashrc for
that running shell

>
> but I can type bash manually and I'm goold
>
> ~$ echo $PATH
>
> /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/home/dio/sh:/home/dio/
>
>
> cat ~/.bashrc
> alias clearl="clear && ls -l"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Mike Hoy
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-- 
Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,
that I wish it always to be kept alive.
  - Thomas Jefferson