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More accurately, it's whether the word that comes after starts with a vowel sound. This is why `an 'istoric` is correct, and `a historic` is correct, but `an hi
by jakear 4y ago
More accurately, it's whether the word that comes after starts with a vowel sound. This is why `an 'istoric` is correct, and `a historic` is correct, but `an historic` is incorrect (as famously used by Steven Colbert).
- edgyquant 4y agoI is a vowel so your rule about sound doesn’t apply here. It’s also not a rule I’ve ever heard, in school we’re taught that only vowels get a before them
- alar44 4y ago[dead]
- frogulis 4y ago> in school we’re taught that only vowels get a before them That's the opposite of how it works (as you demonstrated in your own comment, "not a rule...") The comment you responded to was correct, or at least very reasonable, and I'm really not sure which part you disagree with.
- fragmede 4y agohttps://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/vowel-sounds-when-use-a-and-an https://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/vowel-sounds-... "Vowel Sounds"
- jmpman 4y agoThank you for posting this. I’m always surprised when people claim the rule is based upon the immediate letter instead of the pronunciation of the first syllable. Makes me wonder if the model was trained incorrectly.
- caf 4y agoThe word is "historic" either way, the commenter was using " 'istoric " as a way of indicating a particular pronunciation. There's a few words in English that begin with the letter h but not with the consonant sound /h/ (depending on your accent!), mostly because they're French in origin: historic is one, and there's also hour, heir, honour. "It is an honour to be here"
- Tao3300 4y agoYeah, where I'm from, since historic has the emphasis on STOR and not HI (as in history), the h is much softer, so it's pretty normal to say "an historic event" but also "a history of the world". It's silly to act like there's a right or wrong. Dialects and accents are a special thing. Just be consistent.
- rcoveson 4y agoI'm always thrown when people write "an SQL parser". I'll bet roughly half this crowd is the opposite and cringe when they read "a SQL parser".
- nailer 4y agoan ess kyu el parser is fine a sequel parser is also fine * * my old Unix colleagues will remember that Sequel is a brand of database that nobody else remembers anymore so tended to use the initialism.
- Tao3300 4y agoI'm in the special superstate where both make me cringe and wish there was a better way! Solution get rid of article. Someone want to know if thing is definitive thing, can figure it out from context!
- JoshuaDavid 4y agoThere's a third article besides "a" and "an". So in order to solve the problem, we need only to ensure that there is only one SQL parser, so that we can refer to it as "the SQL parser". (also, I'm in the opposite superstate to the one you are in -- both "a SQL parser" and "an SQL parser" look fine to me, although I internally pronounce the first as "a seekwul parser" and the second as "an ess cue ell parser")
- anacrolix 4y agoI'm a grammar Nazi but I can report neither gets my hackles up in this case!
- Tao3300 4y agoCanst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?
- shirleyquirk 4y agoOr "Esau was an hairy man" from beyond the fringe https://youtu.be/UOsYN---eGk https://youtu.be/UOsYN---eGk