a or an

[IknowMe]

I was watching a sitcom last night and one of the characters was looking to his brother to help him choose a career path. The brothers advice was to quickly finish the statement "I want to be a ......." revealing his true desire.

The brother imeddiatly answers "Cop" and then blames his brother for making the decision for him as the choice was either a cop or an Alarm Salesman.

I'm unaware with the rules regarding the use of each and thought I'd look them up. I then thought it would be funner to ask here.

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[IknowMe]

Thanks for giving me the "long" and the "short" of it CC

Bad Santa

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

rjoubert: I agree with both of your posts.

See my example of "An NCSU...." (I'm keeping an eye on you, CC ). SQL is a much better example for this group, though. You would write it the way you say it. Either "A sequel query" or "An S.Q.L. query".

And for Hotel, I'd be willing to bet that you don't really pronounce the "H" in "hotel", Fee. That's probably common enough where you went to school that it was safe to just teach it that way.

Over here we are more likely to pronounce the H. Consider the word "herb". Americans usually don't pronounce the "H". So we should say "An 'erb", whereas Brits would say "A Herb".

[aside]
I've never really thought about it before, but are there any other words where Americans drop the H but Brits pronounce it? It usually goes the other way....
[/aside]

Santa: Regarding the "full glottal stop", yes! That's what I was trying to describe when I said, "sounding jerky and halting", but I didn't know the term off the top of my head (I have heard it - I used to date a linguistics major in college, but that was a long time ago).

But I disagree about "Hotel". Honestly, either way is a bit of a tongue-twister. But for me, "An hotel" contains a much longer pause than, "A hotel". I suspect that I'm pronouncing the "H" more strongly than are you.

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[LNBruno]

Just so, another'iggins! ;-)

< M!ke >
Your right to an opinion does not obligate me to take you seriously.
- Winston Churchill

 

[Welshbird]

Anotherhiggins - really, honestly, I would say an hotel with a noticeable H.

(In addition, I really want the title of this thread to say
An or A
rather than a or an!)


Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[CajunCenturion]

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[rosieb]

I've never really thought about it before, but are there any other words where Americans drop the H but Brits pronounce it? It usually goes the other way....

Now I'm confused, are you talking about "Estuary English"? (wha I allus fin of as bein Sarf Lunnon wiv a bi of Essex frown in).

"Estuary English", whilst currently popular in the media is actually not spoken in most of the UK.

I was brought up to speak something close to "Received Pronunciation" (effectively, BBC English), and I can't think of many words where I'd drop an "H" (though that could well be me not recognising the fact).

I'd probably only admit to heir, honest, honour and hour as per this, which is quite interesting:

http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/wordfrom/aitches/?view=uk

(To take their summary: "if you drop your aitches, you can legitimately claim to be using the original English pronunciation, but only if the word is derived from Latin!")




Rosie
"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." Richard Feynman

 

[ncotton]

Brits generally pronounce it more like "'istory" and should use "an".

OR NOT! You've been watching too many films with crap actors over stereotyping the cockney English character.

History has a big H at the front of it.

Neil J Cotton
Technical Consultant
Anix Group Ltd

 

[AnotherHiggins]

I stand corrected. Brits pronounce their aitches. They just incorrectly proceed history with "an" instead of "A".

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[strongm]

>you must produce a "full glottal stop".

Not noticing that with the long A ...

 

[mmerlinn]

English generally avoids using glottal stops, so any time one is "required" between "a" and the following word the "n" sound is inserted to avoid using the glottal stop.

For some reason within words, English does sometimes use a glottal stop, but does not indicate its use in the written word, just assumes the speaker knows that it belongs there. For example, SKI'ING, HAWAI'I, CO'ORDINATE, etc.


mmerlinn

"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"

 

[BobRodes]

<English generally avoids using glottal stops
Depends on where you come from. Some English use them all the time.

As for a vs. an with words beginning with h: the aspirant h was considered a "grey area" in this regard, owing to the fact that it more closely resembles vowels than most other consonants do. While a full glottal stop (or, as strongm suggests, a "y" sound with the long a, as in "ay egg") isn't necessary to differentiate the article in the form "a" from the noun to which it's connected, it's fairly close.

Because of this (IMO), the use of "an" in front of words beginning with a prounounced h was quite common, e. g. "He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him." [KJB, Eccl. 10:8] and "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" [ibid., Job 41:1] However, modern usage generally considers it overadorned and pedantic, with exceptions in front of the words "history" and "hysterical". I expect that these exceptions will eventually fall away as well.

For more:

http://books.google.com/books?id=rJ...ts=5cXq4pLqC0&sig=kwrcHHZ6BFMM-MGFbbLh6xQiAWU

http://wordinfo.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_archive.html

Bob

 

[AnotherHiggins]

[offtopic]

Does all this talk of whether one pronounces an "H" make anyone else think of SilentAiche?

[/offtopic]

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[IknowMe]

SilentAiche geesh, give that guy a forum and tell him to make an impression and look what happens.

Wow, I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.

 

[BobRodes]

<English does sometimes use a glottal stop [...] For example, SKI'ING, HAWAI'I, CO'ORDINATE

The only one of these that actually is an example of a glottal stop is in the native pronunciation of Hawai'i, (see

http://www.friesian.com/hawaii.htm#pronounce).

Otherwise you have given examples of elisions. A glottal stop in English is most often seen in certain English accents such as "Cockney", where it replaces internal and ending t's. For example, "bottle" is pronounced "bo' l", "shut up" as "shu' up" (or "shurrup" but we'll leave that alone) and so on. Certain African-american accents have glottal stops as well; since these accents tend not to pronounce (or pronounce in highly attenuated fashion) consonants at the end of words, they are also prone to interjecting glottal stops between words, for example "leaning on" would sound like "leani' on."

Bob

 

[BobRodes]

<I can't think of many words where I'd drop an "H"

I did all the time, when I lived in Oxford as a teenager. The dropping of "h" and the use of glottal stops is more of a class distinction (the "university blokes" didn't do it, for example), than a regional one. As such the concept that this is indicative of "Estuary English" (i. e. as springing from the Thames estuary) doesn't strike me as accurate. In my experience, the "posh" people (or the "ponces" if one was feeling derisive of the practice) spoke with the h and the t. I didn't find much variation of this in my travels about the country.

Bob

 

[BobRodes]

<any other words where Americans drop the H but Brits pronounce it?

Well, a lot of Brits that drop their h's say "haitch" when pronouncing the letter itself, interestingly enough.

 

[Welshbird]

Bob - they do. Another of my pet 'ates.

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[BobRodes]

Yes, for us American's it's not such an emotional issue, since we think you ALL talk funny.

 

[LNBruno]

And, of course, we have our own internal problems, so everyone here talks funny depending on where you are:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_English_regional_differences

< M!ke >
[small]I can say nothing, which is cowardly, I can lie, which is immoral, or I can tell the truth, which will upset people. - Tiki Barber[/small]