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.
The vowel sound rule (or a related one) is also used for which vowel sound goes at the end of the definite article “the”, that is, the sound the ‘e’ makes.
Usually the last vowel sound of “the” is a schwa, arguably the most common vowel sound in English, but before another vowel sound, it becomes “ee”, or what other European languages might write “i”.
There might even be an intrusive y (or j as used in Norse and Germanic languages) depending on the speaker. i.e. “The apple” may well be pronounced “thi(y)apple”, and a fellow native speaker wouldn’t notice. “The ball” has the usual schwa. As does “the usual schwa” for that matter.
I had never heard this spelled out or identified the pattern myself, even though I’d noticed there were differences. Thank you for sharing! This answers questions I didn’t even know I had.
I barely understood this but I’ve also tried to explain this very thing. I believe it was actually on a post about the pronunciation of ‘Data’ because I felt there were differences to each but could not explain why for the life of me.
What about when the next word starts with a schwa? In practice it seems like you change one or the other but not both: “The economy” becomes either “thee uh-conomy” or “tha ee-conomy” but not either combined alternative. Does this rule hold?
Schwa is a vowel, so it would be the long e, not schwa on “the”.
A possible exception is when the following word begins with a long e, and people might actually break the rule to make it clear where one word ends and the other begins. Or rather they insert a glottal stop before the vowel sound - I believe this is called “hard attack” - and since a glottal stop is technically a consonant, that allows the rule-break.
That is, something like “the eel” could go either way, but there’d be a very obvious glottal stop before “eel” if the speaker chose the schwa version of “the”, and they would have made that choice for clarity, to avoid sounding like they’d said “theel”.
deleted by creator
Truly an historic effort by OP
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)
With certain accents that’s actually correct
I don’t disagree at all but I know it bugs some people, so here we are.
An Herculean effort, even.
it’s been an honor serving with you
it’s been
ana honor serving with youFTFY
I so want to downvote, but will refrain. However the gross feeling remains.
I tip my hat to you.
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?
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.
Carefully read the comment you’re replying to
I missed it. Appreciate you.
Except all the time from this doesn’t apply, cuz English is fucking nuts.
English is definitely nuts, but can you give an example of where this particular rule doesn’t apply?
Did you not read any of the other comments of the thread? Like a dozen people already gave a great examples.
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.
This is the general rule, but you’ll run into problems with words that are pronounced differently with different dialects.
Example:
A herb / An herb
I’d say ‘an herb’ because where I’m from, the h is silent.
But there are many places where it isn’t silent.
A bunch of other comments are using ‘history’ of an example of this… but I’ve not heard of a dialect where the h in history is silent.
That’s not a problem at all. Your example proves the rule: it’s about how the first letter sounds, not what the first letter is.
Agreed, it does prove the rule.
…but that doesn’t change what I said.
If you’re interacting soley through text, you may get into a/an arguments with people who don’t know that different dialects pronounce the same words differently.
I didn’t say ‘this disproves the rule.’
Th’nk ofa som uk accents, lack’n the aytch, comin’ out 'istory & tha like
Well, that does count as a dialect, but I literally would not be able to comprehend it in person.
I have the PNW dialect, aka, the accent that is trained into every newcaster and hollywood actor, because basically every English speaker can understand it without difficulty.
The type O blood of English dialects, if you would.
Is that similar to Transatlantic speak? Transatlantic comes from pronunciation and pitch that carried well on poor radio signals preceeding the digital age. Meanwhile, I swear it was something in the MidAtlantic US that won most neutral English accent… Or most neutral American at the least.
Kinda sorta.
The actual accent itself doesn’t sound the same, but I think you’re getting at how it came to be.
The PNW dialect/accent is basically a subset of the Californian dialect/accent, with a few differences.
It arose as being very close to ‘General American’ because it was the last, or latest part of the US to be settled by significant numbers of English speakers, and is an amalgamation of the accents of English speakers from many different pre-exsting American dialect regions.
People from the PNW often do not even realize that they have an accent, as it is so close to a sort of normalized middle ground of other US American English accents.
TransAtlantic accent/dialect specifically arose because of the technology, as you say… and also I think a bit from social circles of basicslly upper class NorthEasterners who had enough money to regulalry interact with actual UK English speakers themselves, whereas PNW accent/dialect seems to not have arisen intentionally, and isn’t as strongly tied to the upper social class of the region.
Seattle and Portland’s first major population booms were the result of the Alaska goldrush near the end of the 1800’s, with basically lower class people coming from all across American (and other parts of the world) either using them as a last port to stock up and buy supplies before heading north, or setting up a business to sell those supplies to those people… and a whole lot of them returned to Seattle or Portland after the Alaska gold rush.
https://pacificupperleft.com/does-the-pacific-northwest-have-an-accent/
Funny. I’m a Seattle native so I too have the PNW accent. Fun trick to show someone with our accent that we actually do have an accent, ask them to pronounce cot and caught. We pronounce them the same lol 🥲
YSklK: don’t use an. it adds nothing to the language. except maybe to provide a enallage
It smooths out the pronunciation when reading out loud.
Here’s some examples.
A farmer fed a animal and got a egg.
A farmer fed an animal and got an egg.
The woman put on a orange hat.
The woman put on an orange hat.
The duck quacked at a cat
The duck quacked at an cat.
The “a orange” could work if you produced a “uh” instead of “eh”. But I think an is the smoothest. “an cat” is just a fun incorrect use of an.
what the fuck’s a nanimal
Typo, they obviously meant to put manimal
Fun show!
The female grandparent of an animal.
More simply:
Farmer fed animal and got egg. Woman put on orange hat. Duck quacked at cat.
A has an important role in language, its more than just filler. I am not an English expert, but I can look up some grammar to refresh myself a bit.
Which animal, how many eggs, what cat, what hat?
[A] identifies a single, but not specific, person or thing. -Merriam-Webster
“The” has the opposite role.
There is a cat at the pond. The duck quacked at the cat.
In the first sentence, I introduced the existence of a cat. In the second sentence I referred specifically to the cat.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indefinite article
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/a#dictionary-entry-2
YSK: don’t listen to this guy. He adds nothing to the language. Except maybe to provide scornful entertainment.
Also OP, learn to capitalize and punctuate before giving your opinion on language usage.
Nah, i use whichever i feel like in the moment. Sometimes a double vowel sound sounds better.
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.
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”).
NASA vs NSA makes this more apparent too. For example:
A NASA investigationvs
An NSA investigationdeleted by creator
They will now!
I’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.
Y is a consonant ? what ?
Y can act as a consonant or a vowel, depending on the position in the word.
Definitely a vowel: Baby
Part of a vowel sound: Play
Not a vowel at all: Yes, lawyer
When a Y starts a syllable, it typically doesn’t take a vowel sound, closer to a “soft j” sound.
a soft J ? in english ? this is the first time I hear of this, are you sure ?
Yeezus/Jesus Yawn/Jawn Yoke/Joke
I don’t know phonetics (or whatever the right term is for “mouth noises for speaking” is) enough to say if y- consonant/soft-j is the closest pairing. As I sit here like a weirdo going “yo-yo-yo” and “jo-jo-jo”, they have a similar starting position, but soft-j definitely has that “ch”. I think maybe it’s closer to an r, like you/rue.
YSK: Different English-speaking countries pronounce things differently. This affects whether to use a or an.
British: “An history” (h is silent) American: “A history” (h is pronounced)
We’d say “a history student” in the UK, and the h isn’t silent.
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?
Trolling is a art
I can’t believe you would make such a simple and obvious mistake. The correct way to say it is “Trolling are a art”, ffs.
No, no, it’s, “Trolling doth be…”
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.
I’m curious on what others’ thoughts are on this: do you say/write “a history” or “an history”? I personally use “a history”, but i’ve seen significant usage of “an history”. Do people not pronounce the ‘h’ in “history”?
Definitely “a history” for me but someone who drops the h for accent reasons, eg a cockney accent, would likely say “an 'istory”.
How they would write it, I’m not sure.
Cockney i’nn’it guv’na.
We pronounce it with a hard H sound here in Canada, so it would be “a history”
However we pronounce “herb” with a silent H sound, so it’s “an herb”.
There was a historic aluminium discovery at the laboratory.
A history - but “historical” can be either. A historical fact or an historical fact, both work for me.
When I’ve heard people say it with “an”, they’ve always pronounced the h, which definitely sounds weird to me.
That sounds weird because it is weird.
I think that sort of thing is from people who have read it without hearing it, or are blindly copying others without thinking about it.
Really, we’re covering basic grammar now?
You know there are english speaking folks outside of the US/UK.
Mindblowing, I know.Only when it’s needed.
With literacy rates in America “hold my beer” low and getting lower, maybe there’s a need.
Example: if people pluralize “email” different from “mail”, they may need to review.
I like how you tried to be a grammar snob and couldn’t even get your example right.
not everyone (thankfully) are american or british.
Yep, including me.
True, but this is really basic stuff. I think I learned this for English as 2nd language in primary school. We trust that people here know English well enough to understand the server rules, why then assume they don’t know basic grammar?
What makes this different from SVO word order? YSK how to use participles? Did you know about the order of adjective (That one is actually pretty interesting, but i’s not basic grammar so it gets to pass). At some point it is ridiculous to try to teach some grammar rules of English in English, and I believe this is well past that point. Even if one doesn’t speak the language naturally or have a formal education in it.
Still can’t get things like contractions, apostrophes, too/to, “should of” sorted out. Still plenty of need for reminders.
How about the the?
Why not then end? Instead of the /dee/ end?
