YSK: Use ‘a’ when the word starts with a _consonant sound_, and ‘an’ when it starts with a _vowel sound_

I’ll chain on: This is why the english language calls the citrus fruit “Orange,” in a round-about way.

The Persians named them Narangs when they acquired them from Asia, which the Spanish turned into “naranja.” But when they crossed the channel “a naranja” became “an aranja” which eventually became “an orange.”

Ha, that's really interesting. Swedish has an interesting example of this as well.

Plural you ("y'all", basically) used to be "i", but because of an archaic inflection rule, there were often an "n" at the end of a word before "i" (like, "när kommen i?"; "when are y'all coming?"). Because of this, "i" eventually turned into "ni" since the n of the previous word merged with i.

I just learned the bit about an ekename from A Way With Words! Great radio program/podcast.

And don't forget the napple!

Truly an historic effort by OP

It is very basic stuff tho, anyone who learned enough english to read this post would've already been taught this. Except for native speakers maybe?

NASA vs NSA makes this more apparent too. For example:

A NASA investigation

vs

An NSA investigation

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”).

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.

not everyone (thankfully) are american or british.

You know there are english speaking folks outside of the US/UK.
Mindblowing, I know.

Only when it's needed.

With literacy rates in America "hold my beer" low and getting lower, maybe there's a need.

Example: if people pluralize "email" different from "mail", they may need to review.

Still can’t get things like contractions, apostrophes, too/to, “should of” sorted out. Still plenty of need for reminders.

I appreciate the tips. Even if they're grammar related. I need all the help I can get 😮‍💨

I barely understood this but I've also tried to explain this very thing. I believe it was actually on a post about the pronunciation of 'Data' because I felt there were differences to each but could not explain why for the life of me.

I had never heard this spelled out or identified the pattern myself, even though I’d noticed there were differences. Thank you for sharing! This answers questions I didn’t even know I had.

What about when the next word starts with a schwa? In practice it seems like you change one or the other but not both: "The economy" becomes either "thee uh-conomy" or "tha ee-conomy" but not either combined alternative. Does this rule hold?

That’s not a problem at all. Your example proves the rule: it’s about how the first letter sounds, not what the first letter is.

Th'nk ofa som uk accents, lack'n the aytch, comin' out 'istory & tha like

I can't believe you would make such a simple and obvious mistake. The correct way to say it is "Trolling are a art", ffs.

Don't even get me started on the fucked-up anglicized versions of Slavic words. Fucking Kruschev and Gorbachev...

Give me an hour and I'm sure I could find a counter-example

This edit made me laugh

Don't worry we've all been there

US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty.[25] The official Ukrainian position is that "the Ukraine" is both grammatically and politically incorrect.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#:~:text=US%20ambassador%20William%20Taylor%20said,both%20grammatically%20and%20politically%20incorrect.

That was fantastic and a must-view for this topic.

Should've been "A Ukrainian" probably.

a Ukraine war would be greatly destabilizing for a European peace

yeah... like "a house" vs. "an honor" It's easy: the +n is a binding sound to avoid a hard stop between two words when the first ends in a vowel and the second begins with one. A hard stop only applies to spoken language, so the +n should be applied where the spoken next sound is a vowel.

For example: "A "large hadron collider"-like setup", vs. "An LHC-like setup"

Kids are frequently taught that letters are vowels (or consonants) when it’s actually the sounds they represent, and there’s not a 1:1 mapping between letters and sounds.

It gets even more (or maybe less?) confusing when you realize that the word for the letter S is ess.

Upper-class British used to 'drop the h' on words with a french root to show off their education. Historic had a silent H but hawk did not, for example.
Side note: H has a silent H, it's "aitch" not "haitch".

My understanding was that you say "an historical account" instead of "a historical account* to differentiate from the phonetically identical "ahistorical account", which means almost precisely the opposite.

Cant you just memorize the letter? Aeiou?

A history - but “historical” can be either. A historical fact or an historical fact, both work for me.

Definitely "a history" for me but someone who drops the h for accent reasons, eg a cockney accent, would likely say "an 'istory".

How they would write it, I'm not sure.

We pronounce it with a hard H sound here in Canada, so it would be "a history"

However we pronounce "herb" with a silent H sound, so it's "an herb".

Cockney i'nn'it guv'na.

When I’ve heard people say it with “an”, they’ve always pronounced the h, which definitely sounds weird to me.

just with a glottal stop to separate vowel sounds.

You may say 'dialect', I'll say 'failed student', potato, potato.

Sound it out. The first sound is a vowel sound so "an elephant".

“a apple” has more flavor to it than “an apple” and i acknowledge how cursed that makes me

An ‘istoric occasion (if you don’t pronounce the H)

A historic occasion (if you do)

It’s all about the sounds, not the letters.

I’m under the impression that mistakes like it’s/its tend to be more common among native speakers than among people who learn the language as teenagers/grown-ups. I might be wrong, though, it’s not like I have any data on the subject.

no shame in that. it’s rough. fun fact: even the US founding fathers got it wrong

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither (Thomas Jefferson’s original rough draft of the Declaration of Independence)

later prints corrected this error which happens three times from Jefferson’s hand.

Go full weird with it and only use tis instead of it's. No confusion that way.

How is “a history” not correct? The h is not silent.

perhaps because russia initiated a ukranian invasion on february 24 2022.

Yes, because it starts with a consonant :)

Oh, here I see the problem, the N isn't supposed to be there! It's supposed to be "A nice napple!"

n is a consonant ;)

We'd say "a history student" in the UK, and the h isn't silent.

That's his exact point though. It depends on the sound when you say it, not the actual letter.

“British” isn't an accent. Like yeah some accents might use an, e.g “‘e’s an ‘istory student, innit?”, however many accents would pronounce the “h” and use “a”. You managed to be correct and incorrect at the same time

Y can act as a consonant or a vowel, depending on the position in the word.

Definitely a vowel: Baby

Part of a vowel sound: Play

Not a vowel at all: Yes, lawyer

When a Y starts a syllable, it typically doesn't take a vowel sound, closer to a "soft j" sound.

English is definitely nuts, but can you give an example of where this particular rule doesn't apply?

I've only ever heard it pronounced "You-Bee-Soft" and the "yuh" sound that starts with functions as a consonant. You wouldn't say "An youtube video."

OP explains in the description why it starts with A ans not An.

I don't know what the official pronunciation is, but I always read it as Ooo-bee-soft.

You-Bee-Soft

This is how I’ve always read it, which would make “A You-Bee-Soft Game” correct

It smooths out the pronunciation when reading out loud.

Here's some examples.

A farmer fed a animal and got a egg.

A farmer fed an animal and got an egg.

The woman put on a orange hat.

The woman put on an orange hat.

The duck quacked at a cat

The duck quacked at an cat.

The "a orange" could work if you produced a "uh" instead of "eh". But I think an is the smoothest. "an cat" is just a fun incorrect use of an.

YSK: don’t listen to this guy. He adds nothing to the language. Except maybe to provide scornful entertainment.

Also OP, learn to capitalize and punctuate before giving your opinion on language usage.