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.
Really, we’re covering basic grammar now?
not everyone (thankfully) are american or british.
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.
Yep, including me.
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.
What’s wrong in the example?
Edit: oh
I appreciate the tips. Even if they’re grammar related. I need all the help I can get 😮💨
Still can’t get things like contractions, apostrophes, too/to, “should of” sorted out. Still plenty of need for reminders.
Don’t forget that ‘h’ is an exception and counts as a vowel: “a hat”edit literally i am wrong about this why did i write that
This edit made me laugh
Don’t worry we’ve all been there
i think my blood sugar was low or sumthin lmao
Give me an hour and I’m sure I could find a counter-example
don’t even need an hour. “herb” has multiple regional pronunciations and so can receive both treatments depending on the context.
also my original comment was just wrong i don’t even know how i got to the point of writing that. “an hour” is the standard treatment of words starting with vowel sounds—the letters themselves don’t matter.
but “h” is treated as a consonant. which it is. duh. i feel so dumb lol.
There are several people who will say “an historic” while fully pronouncing the H and acting all smug and proper about it.
OMG THATS WHAT I WAS REMEMBERING TY
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”
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?
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.
Our mouths really want to flow vowel->>consonant->> vowel->>consonant->> and various languages all have their ways of helping that happen.
An historic post.
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 Ukraine? Really? Why couldn’t you use something practical like a university.
perhaps because russia initiated a ukranian invasion on february 24 2022.
I’m a native English speaker, not fluent in any other languages, and I still fuck up it’s / its on a regular basis.
I’m under the impression that mistakes like it’s/its tend to be more common among native speakers than among people who learn the language as teenagers/grown-ups. I might be wrong, though, it’s not like I have any data on the subject.
no shame in that. it’s rough. fun fact: even the US founding fathers got it wrong
he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither (Thomas Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence)
later prints corrected this error which happens three times from Jefferson’s hand.
Go full weird with it and only use tis instead of it’s. No confusion that way.
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
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.
Ubisoft needs to hear this.
It hurts my soul everytime I start up Farcry 5 and see “A Ubisoft Game” and not “An Ubisoft Game” on the intro splash screens.
Unless they pronounce it something other than You-Bee-Soft or Ooo-bee-soft. In which case, that would hurt my soul even more.
I’ve only ever heard it pronounced “You-Bee-Soft” and the “yuh” sound that starts with functions as a consonant. You wouldn’t say “An youtube video.”
You wouldn’t download an car
The phrase “an car” was used by Wade of Dankpods/Garbage Time, I think to describe a 90’s Toyota Corolla. “It’s An Car” to mean it does the job of a self-propelled box on wheels with seats in it. And I’ve taken to use that to describe bog standard tools, like my completely unremarkable Wen drill press is An Drill Press.
That’s great I love it. I do the opposite, I like to give banal items overly technical names. Chair=orthogonal spinal support unit. Hammer=non-calibrated adjustment appliance, etc.
I don’t know what the official pronunciation is, but I always read it as Ooo-bee-soft.
I always heard it as if it was an insult. Like they hated their customers.
YOU BE SOFT, BIIIITCH.
in french afaik it is pronounced like a french u, or a german ü
OP explains in the description why it starts with A ans not An.
You-Bee-Soft
This is how I’ve always read it, which would make “A You-Bee-Soft Game” correct
