'A' or 'An'

Status
Not open for further replies.
Mammalian said:
it's not the letter the word beings with which decides if you use a or an, e.g. i don't go to a university
Click to expand...

In standard English, it is "A university".

University starts with "U" (duh!) which, when phonetically pronounced, is "you". Y is not a vowel, therefore we do not use "an" infront of "univeristy".
 
Dj_Jestar said:
"an historian" is correct. "An" is to be used when the first letter of a word is phonetically pronounced with a starting vowel. Not the word itself. Thus "h" appears to be a special case, as it is pronounced "aitch". I do not care for those who improperly pronounce it "haitch" like the window licking autisms they are.
Click to expand...

An historian is wrong.

You base it on the pronunciation of the first syllable, in this case "hiss-tor-e-an", not on how the first letter of the word is spelt, if you were to pronounce it "iss-tor-e-an" then you would use "an".

You only pronounce H "aitch" when using it in a singular form, not as part of the word.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom