Why you should know: The ‘a’ vs ‘an’ conundrum is not about what letter actually begins the word, but instead about how the sound of the word starts.
For example, the ‘h’ in ‘hour’ is silent, so you would say ‘an hour’ and not ‘a hour’. A trickier example is Ukraine: because the ‘U’ is pronounced as ‘You’, and in this case the ‘y’ is a consonant, you would say “a Ukraine” and not “an Ukraine”.
Tip: when in doubt, sound it out(loud).
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Some modern English words have changed because the leading “n” from the noun migrated over to the article which precedes it, or from the article to the noun.
“Apron” was originally napron, “a napron”. “Nickname” was originally ekename (with the first part coming from the same root as “eke”, as in “eke out a living”). “An ekename” became “a nekename” and then “a nickname”.
I just learned the bit about an ekename from A Way With Words! Great radio program/podcast.
And don’t forget the napple!
Ha, that’s really interesting. Swedish has an interesting example of this as well.
Plural you (“y’all”, basically) used to be “i”, but because of an archaic inflection rule, there were often an “n” at the end of a word before “i” (like, “när kommen i?”; “when are y’all coming?”). Because of this, “i” eventually turned into “ni” since the n of the previous word merged with i.
I’ll chain on: This is why the english language calls the citrus fruit “Orange,” in a round-about way.
The Persians named them Narangs when they acquired them from Asia, which the Spanish turned into “naranja.” But when they crossed the channel “a naranja” became “an aranja” which eventually became “an orange.”
That’s happened in french and Italian too then, “une orange” and “un’arancia”. Wild.
Same with Arabic when Alexander became Skender and Alzheimer’s became zheimers.
Some examples of this phenomenon in French are “un ombril” -> “un nombril” (a navel, from the latin umbilicus) and “l’ierre” -> “le lierre” (the ivy, from the latin hedera).
just wait 'til you see what they did with “el lagarto”
Pretty simple enough for us Deaf folks.
Cant you just memorize the letter? Aeiou?
I was referring to how words sound out…
How am I supposed to know stuff like ‘h’ in hour is silent.
Does spellcheck work?
Our mouths really want to flow vowel->>consonant->> vowel->>consonant->> and various languages all have their ways of helping that happen.
Let me try : “an Apple”, “an nice Apple” … not sure about the second one …
Yes, because it starts with a consonant :)
n is a consonant ;)
Oh, here I see the problem, the N isn’t supposed to be there! It’s supposed to be “A nice napple!”
I’m pretty sure they’re talking an ice apple.
I’ve seen a good 15 minute essay-video about this:
TLDW: English speakers increasingly use the consonant versions of “a(n)”, “the” and “to” for anything in casual conversation, just with a glottal stop to separate vowel sounds. This is then found more and more in written and formal language.
just with a glottal stop to separate vowel sounds.
You may say ‘dialect’, I’ll say ‘failed student’, potato, potato.
A elephant?
Sound it out. The first sound is a vowel sound so “an elephant”.
But it’s L.
Please tell me you are joking.
Ha ha yes But no. That’s not how an E sounds.
How would you pronounce:
Al, as in Allen?
La, as in Law?
El, as in Elope?
Le, as in Level?
Ill, as in… Ill?
Li, as in Lick?
Ol, as in Oligarchy?
Lo, as in Logistics?
Ul, as in Ultimate?
Lu, as in Luminate?
Just because the letter ‘L’ is generally pronounced ‘el’ on its own does not mean the ‘e’ sound is not a vowel.
Its ‘an elephant’ because ‘e’ is a vowel, and that’s the first pronounced sound.
Its ‘a lever’, because ‘l’ is a consonant, and that’s the first pronounced sound.
… Is English not your first language, or have you not graduated middle school yet?
This is an great post
Truly an historic effort by OP
An Herculean effort, even.
I so want to downvote, but will refrain. However the gross feeling remains.
I tip my hat to you.
it’s been an honor serving with you
it’s been
ana honor serving with youFTFY
I used to hate this but legit like it now.
I’m striking “a” from my vocab. Consonants also get an now. “So i gave him an knuckle sandwich.” beautiful 🤩
I hope you get loose vowels.
(/j)
You can take your loose vowels and stick em up your loose bowels
With certain accents that’s actually correct
I don’t disagree at all but I know it bugs some people, so here we are.
It is very basic stuff tho, anyone who learned enough english to read this post would’ve already been taught this. Except for native speakers maybe?
Carefully read the comment you’re replying to
I missed it. Appreciate you.
Cheers
Except for native speakers maybe?
Exactly. This is a less egregious example of the they’re/their dilemma.
Your, you’re
There is / There are (with the wrong pluralisation)
So often…so so often.
deleted by creator
“British” isn’t an accent. Like yeah some accents might use an, e.g “‘e’s an ‘istory student, innit?”, however many accents would pronounce the “h” and use “a”. You managed to be correct and incorrect at the same time
That’s his exact point though. It depends on the sound when you say it, not the actual letter.
We’d say “a history student” in the UK, and the h isn’t silent.
I guess I never heard the accents that produced “istoric” in reference to the false americanized version of “an Historic event” such as any time Robert Picard (Richard Woolsey) appeared in Stargate
Upper-class British used to ‘drop the h’ on words with a french root to show off their education. Historic had a silent H but hawk did not, for example.
Side note: H has a silent H, it’s “aitch” not “haitch”.My understanding was that you say “an historical account” instead of "a historical account* to differentiate from the phonetically identical “ahistorical account”, which means almost precisely the opposite.
Why would you use Ukraine as the example word instead of uniform?
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard “the Ukraine” been pronounced both ways often enough.
US ambassador William Taylor said that using “the Ukraine” implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty.[25] The official Ukrainian position is that “the Ukraine” is both grammatically and politically incorrect.
The problem is not the rule, but that the many exceptions apply to the written word, whereas they are based on phonological reasons and the same letter can have several pronunciations in English.
yeah… like “a house” vs. “an honor” It’s easy: the +n is a binding sound to avoid a hard stop between two words when the first ends in a vowel and the second begins with one. A hard stop only applies to spoken language, so the +n should be applied where the spoken next sound is a vowel.
For example: “A “large hadron collider”-like setup”, vs. “An LHC-like setup”
Nah, i use whichever i feel like in the moment. Sometimes a double vowel sound sounds better.
“a apple” has more flavor to it than “an apple” and i acknowledge how cursed that makes me
This is also true for initialisms, which are acronyms in which each letter is pronounced individually.
“A NASA project” would not become “an NASA project” because nobody pronounces each individual letter of NASA, they just say it as one word.
“An FBI agent” would always be correct, and “a FBI agent” would always be incorrect, because FBI is never pronounced as a word, and each letter is pronounced individually.
Wait, you mean people don’t call the FBI the fuhbby!?
They will now!
NASA vs NSA makes this more apparent too. For example:
A NASA investigationvs
An NSA investigationI’m not usually that guy but this seems to be the thread for it. Initialisms and acronyms are both types of abbreviation, where you pronounce acronyms as a word (NASA) and initialisms as individual letters (FBI).
I’ve had meetings at work over this. I had to draw a flow chart.The separation between acronyms and initialisms isn’t as strict as you’ve described here. Acronym is the older word and people generally use it to mean both acronym and initialism, whereas the latter mostly indicates cases where you read individual letters.
What is the difference between an acronym and an initialism?
Both acronyms and initialisms are made up of the first letter or letters of the words in a phrase. The word acronym typically applies when the resulting thing can be read as a word; for example, radar comes from “radio detection and ranging” and scuba comes from “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.” The word initialism only applies when the resulting thing is read as an abbreviation; for example DIY, which comes from “do it yourself,” is pronounced by saying the names of the letters. Note that the word acronym is also sometimes used to mean “initialism.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym
You make a valid point. One initialism/acronym I can think of that can go both ways is SQL (Standard Query Language). You can either pronounce it as Sequel (thus “a sequel query”), or as individual letters (“an S.Q.L. query”).
deleted by creator
English is definitely nuts, but can you give an example of where this particular rule doesn’t apply?
deleted by creator
All of the examples relate to differences in pronunciation, so the guidance in the OP is good - use your personal pronunciation. I would imagine this would be harder for non-native speakers, but fortunately there aren’t many words (that I’m aware of) that are commonly pronounced with a leading vowel sound or leading consonant sound depending of dialect.
The only example cited in this thread that most people will experience is “herb” which has large populations that pronounce it with and without a silent “h.” “History” and related words are not commonly pronounced with a silent h outside of regional dialects.
Historic
An ‘istoric occasion (if you don’t pronounce the H)
A historic occasion (if you do)
It’s all about the sounds, not the letters.
