A/An

[chessbot]

I was typing a post and came up with an a/an dispute. I know that a is used before consonants, and an is used befor vowels, but what about words beginning in vowels but that sound like consonants?

a car
an apple

a/n unit (YOO-nit)?
a/n herb (URB)?

--Chessbot

"See the TURTLE of enormous girth!"
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[wuneyej]

a unit
an herb

Your rule holds true most of the time. The following link explains the exceptions you stumbled upon...

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/print/esl/PDFs/esliart.pdf

 

[sleipnir214]

I was taught to always gone with the sound, not the actual letter. So I'd write:

a unit
an herb


These pages (from a Google query of article "a or an" vowel consonant) agree:

http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/043001.htm

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/esliart.html

http://ceds.vu.edu.au/webbja/articlewords5.htm

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000167.htm

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[chessbot]

Thanks. Anyone disagree?

--Chessbot

"See the TURTLE of enormous girth!"
-- Stephen King, The Dark Tower series

 

[rosieb]

Yes,
But I would pronounce herb with the "h"... "A herb" sounds right to me but "an 'erb" just sounds wrong - but that's a transatlantic thing.

Generally, I'd go with the majority.

Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)

 

[CajunCenturion]

Words that being with 'h' can be somewhat difficult, as it depends on whether or not the 'h' is pronounced. Herb is a good example as some folks do pronounce the 'h' and some folks do not. If you do pronouce the 'h', as rosieb suggests, then you should use the pronoun 'a', but if you do not pronouce the 'h', then 'an' is the preferable choice.

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[sleipnir214]

The initial "h" is often a source of wonder to me. Pronunciation similarities and differences across the Atlantic with "hour" and "herb" aside, there is a population in the U.S. that pronounces "humble" with a silent initial "h". But still, the "vowel sound: a/consonent sound: an" rule applies.


The weird one, to me, is the word "history". There seems to be an idiom among some people to use "an" with "history", even if such a person pronounces the initial "h". I haven't been able to find much online about this, except sites which say, "Don't do that." Does anyone have anything on this?


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[wuneyej]

Yeah, I guess there are some folks who do pronounce the h in herb. I live in the Midwestern US and I don't ever hear anyone pronounce the h, but maybe it's common in the UK perhaps?

As far as "history" goes, I'd always use "a" in the written language. But when it comes to the spoken language, I believe there are times when I'd say "an", as in an historical finding. It's just how it rolls off one's tongue.

 

[RodKnowlton]

I think that "an" has been incorrectly used with "history" so frequently here in the US that it has become accepted. I lost track of the number of times I heard it during the recent elections.

The culprit is probably the use of "honor" as the canonical illustration of the "a/n", "consonant/vowel" rule. This gets shortened to a "silent h" rule, which is internalized by a certain percentage of students as an "h" rule.

That's my theory, at least.




Rod Knowlton
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[columb]

wuneyej

The h in herb is certainly a transatlantic thing. Dropping the h is seen in the UK as being rather vulgar and ill educated. It's exactly what Proffessor Henry Higgins trains out of Eliza Doolittle in 'My Fair Lady'. On the other hand it seems to be the other way round in the States.

This highlights the difficulties with using the pronunciuation. We differ over the pronunciation of 'herb'. Honour (or honor) always seems to drop the h. What about 'hotel'? Personnally I write 'an hotel' but it's a borderline case.

Columb Healy
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[RodKnowlton]

This highlights the difficulties with using the pronunciuation. We differ over the pronunciation of 'herb'. Honour (or honor) always seems to drop the h.

Your "honour" sentence points the way. If the nationality of the author is unknown, then "a herb" means a hard aitch. If you know that the author is American, then it's a grammatical error.

Just as I would consider "honor" to be a mispelling if I knew the author to be English, although I doubt that I would actually catch it.

Rod Knowlton
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[wuneyej]

columb

You're quite right, it is the other way around here in the States, at least in the Midwest. Kind of like horse racing. Here in the US the horses run counter-clockwise, but it's clockwise in the UK, yes? Sorry to get off-topic.

 

[Dimandja]

<still off topic>
Do Canadians write honor or honour?
</still off topic>

 

[GwydionM]

I tried Google and got 139,000 hits for a herb, as against 300,000 for an herb. Both are valid.

A herb (pronounced "urb" in American English and "hurb" in British English) is a plant grown for culinary or medicinal value. Typically, the green, leafy part of the plant is used. General usage differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs. A medicinal herb may be a shrub or other woody plant, whereas a culinary herb is a non-woody plant. By contrast, spices are the seeds, berries, bark, root, or other parts of the plant, even leaves in some cases and is only a culinary term. Culinary herbs are distinguished from vegetables in that they are used in small quantities and provide flavor rather than substance to food.
In botany, a herb is a plant that does not produce a woody stem, or is a plant that dies back to the ground at the end of the growing season. The term herbaceous means either having the characteristic of a herb or being leaf-like in color and texture. A related term is Forb, which means a non-woody plant that is not a grass and is not grass-like. This means that the term forb excludes sedges (Cyperaceae) and rushes (Juncaceae) along with grasses (Poaceae).

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A view from the UK

 

[MikeBarone]

a car
an apple
a unit
an herb

A and An before a word beginning with "h": "An historical book" is not idiomatic in American English. Before a pronounced h, the indefinite article should be a. A hotel; a historical. Therefore, precede a word beginning with a "breathy" h with an a. In the case of the word herb you would use an since the h is silent.

Mike Barone

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[RodKnowlton]

MikeBarone,

Thanks for the inverse example (a unit), I knew there were initial vowels with consonant sounds, but was drawing a blank.



Rod Knowlton
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