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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  • Match!!@pawb.socialEnglish
    311·
    7 hours ago

    YSK: don’t use an. it adds nothing to the language. except maybe to provide a enallage

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      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.

    • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
      8·
      7 hours ago

      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.