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Just curious, and this is hacker news so I feel emboldened to ask about linguistic quirks, do you pronounce “CGI” in a way that necessitates an “an” instead of
by wincy 4y ago
Just curious, and this is hacker news so I feel emboldened to ask about linguistic quirks, do you pronounce “CGI” in a way that necessitates an “an” instead of “a” preceding it? If so where are you from and what accent would you say you have? Do you pronounce the letters or the words?
I swear I’m asking from a place of genuine curiosity and am not trying to be a pedantic jerk.
- boredemployee 4y agoNot a native speaker but I usually see it when using acronyms. Please someone clarify this :)
- dwringer 4y agoAs the poster commented, it was a typo in this case and should have been "a". But, in general, we would use "an" preceding an acronym whenever the pronunciation of the acronym begins with a vowel sound. To use some broadcast networks as examples, you could say "A CBS production" [analogous to "a CGI"], but "An ABC production" or "An NBC production" (note NBC is pronounced starting with a vowel sound, at the start of "en").
- ajcp 4y agoYou use `an` in front of an acronym when the first letter of it has a vowel _sound_, even if the letter itself is not a vowel. Example: "A member of parliament talked to me." "An MP talked to me." Here when pronouncing the m in `MP` the vowel sound for e is made, as in 'em'.
- boredemployee 4y agothank you both!
- Flatcircle 4y agono that was a mistake, was gonna use a different word. "An effects guy" but at the last minute changed to CGI.
- wincy 4y agoHah well thanks for humoring me and my apologies for making a mountain out of a molehill.