RE: A/An

["Swallow, William" <WSwallow -at- courion -dot- com>]

::  *a* before a word that begins with a consonant. *an* before 
::  a word that begins with a vowel.

Um, this isn't a "word" we're talking about here. It's an acronym. An
acronym (for those who don't know) is an abbreviation of a term using the
prominent letters in the term (usually the first letter of each word in the
term).

So, in this and every case, the choice of a/an relies not in what sounds OK,
but what is technically correct. For example, HTML stands for HyperText
Markup Language (capitalization used for emphasis on the dominant letters
that make up the acronym). Though it *sounds* ok to say "An HTML
document..." it's technically incorrect because once you expand the acronym,
you get "An hypertext markup language document". 

Or am I completely and totally off on this?

***************** 
BILL SWALLOW 
Technical Writer 
C O U R I O N   C O R P O R A T I O N 
1881 Worcester Road 
Framingham, Mass.  01701 
T E L * 508-879-8400 x316 
F A X * 508-879-8500 
www.courion.com 
***************** 

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