Why you should know: The ‘a’ vs ‘an’ conundrum is not about what letter actually begins the word, but instead about how the sound of the word starts.

For example, the ‘h’ in ‘hour’ is silent, so you would say ‘an hour’ and not ‘a hour’. A trickier example is Ukraine: because the ‘U’ is pronounced as ‘You’, and in this case the ‘y’ is a consonant, you would say “a Ukraine” and not “an Ukraine”.

Tip: when in doubt, sound it out(loud).

Reference

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  • RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.worldEnglish
    27·
    1 day ago

    This is also true for initialisms, which are acronyms in which each letter is pronounced individually.

    “A NASA project” would not become “an NASA project” because nobody pronounces each individual letter of NASA, they just say it as one word.

    “An FBI agent” would always be correct, and “a FBI agent” would always be incorrect, because FBI is never pronounced as a word, and each letter is pronounced individually.

    • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
      21·
      14 hours ago

      I’m not usually that guy but this seems to be the thread for it. Initialisms and acronyms are both types of abbreviation, where you pronounce acronyms as a word (NASA) and initialisms as individual letters (FBI).
      I’ve had meetings at work over this. I had to draw a flow chart.

      • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
        1·
        11 hours ago

        The separation between acronyms and initialisms isn’t as strict as you’ve described here. Acronym is the older word and people generally use it to mean both acronym and initialism, whereas the latter mostly indicates cases where you read individual letters.

        What is the difference between an acronym and an initialism?

        Both acronyms and initialisms are made up of the first letter or letters of the words in a phrase. The word acronym typically applies when the resulting thing can be read as a word; for example, radar comes from “radio detection and ranging” and scuba comes from “self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.” The word initialism only applies when the resulting thing is read as an abbreviation; for example DIY, which comes from “do it yourself,” is pronounced by saying the names of the letters. Note that the word acronym is also sometimes used to mean “initialism.”

        https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acronym

        https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=acronym

        https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=initialism

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      9·
      1 day ago

      You make a valid point. One initialism/acronym I can think of that can go both ways is SQL (Standard Query Language). You can either pronounce it as Sequel (thus “a sequel query”), or as individual letters (“an S.Q.L. query”).