Re: A or An?

["Friedman, Michael" <mhf -at- DSC -dot- COM>]

Personally, I go by the "sound" of the noun that comes immediately
after the article. If it sounds like a vowel, I treat it as a vowel.

For example, let's say you're instructing a student to begin a word
with the letter "f" ... as in, "Start that word with a/an f." nouns
beginning with the letter "f" would normally take the article "a" ...
as in, "a fork." But the letter "f" when spoken sounds like "eff"
...i.e., it starts with a vowel sound.

So, when writing the example sentence above, would you say, "Start
that word with an f," or "Start that word with a f"? I'm not sure
which is technically correct, but "a f" sounds wrong and is awkward to
say, either silently or out loud. I've always let the initial vowel
sound be my guide. If the word immediately following the article
"sounds" like it starts with a vowel, treat it as a vowel and use "an"
as the article.

Michael
___________________________________________________________________

Original Posting
The first part of Will's suggestion is good.
The second part doesn't work. If it were, then you would also say...

"In the phrase 'I want a/an orange wagon', use 'a' instead of 'an'
because the item that's being referred to is the wagon, and not
'orange'".

Doesn't work that way. The article has to agree with the word it
immediately precedes, not with the downstream noun that follows
however
many frontloaded adjectives there may be.

The root problem, of course, is the one referred to in the original
posting:  in silently reading something like ".eel" we may not
"pronounce" the leading period to ourselves, but in saying it out
loud,
we'd make it explicit:  "dot" or "period"...

Will's rephrasing seems the easiest way around.
--------
Ernie Tamminga
Director, InfoEngineering
Digital Sound Corporation
-----------------------------------------------
Opinions expressed are my own, and not necessarily those of Digital
Sound Corporation

>-----Original Message-----
>From:  Will Rodina [SMTP:rodina -at- TRINITY -dot- UDAYTON -dot- EDU]
>Sent:  Thursday, July 03, 1997 8:16 AM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Re: A or An?
>
>[de-lurking mode on]
>
>> I have the following phrase in a topic:
>>
>>         "... with a/an .eel extension."
>>
>> The question is, should it be A or AN? Grammatically speaking, I
would
>> guess you ignore the dot and use AN. But if you say it out loud,
you might
>> well say "with a dot eel extension", in which case A sounds right.
>>
>> When I read it, something in me twitches if I have AN. What do you
all
>> think?
>
>My suggestion would be to reword the phrase.  Something along the
>lines of "... with an extension of .eel" might suffice.
>
>If you like the phrasing as is, then I would go with 'an'.  The item
>that's being referred to is 'extension' and not '.eel'.
>
>

~
 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a
message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send
commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at
http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
 Send list questions or problems to the listowner at

 TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot-  Send commands
   to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
  Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/  or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html