X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,ef84650dd3e606e5 X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-10-12 09:08:35 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news1.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3BC7137B.20402@usa.net> From: Peter Henderson User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:0.9.3) Gecko/20010801 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art Subject: Re: what is it? References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 43 Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 15:59:49 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.0.34.122 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com 1002902389 24.0.34.122 (Fri, 12 Oct 2001 08:59:49 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 08:59:49 PDT Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: archiver1.google.com alt.ascii-art:8550 anonymous@bogus_address.con wrote: > On 2001-10-03 l3mst0r@bumblbee.demon.co.uk said: > > > >It's rather easy when you know it really, when a word begins with > > >a vowel, you say "an" (an apple, an oven, an utter) if it begins > > >with a consonant, it's always "a" (a pear, a clock, a ship). > > >It's easy as (a) pie :-)) > > > >What about Hour, Hotel, Happy? It's not enough to know that the > >word starts with a vowel, you have to know it *sounds* as though it > >starts with a vowel. > > In American English, the preferred (and proper) usage is: > > =A= hotel > =A= happy > =A= hovel > =A= ham > =A= herring > > ..since in American English, the leading 'h' is almost always > pronounced. There is no 'dropped-H' Cockney accent in the U.S.A. > > 'Hour' is the exception that proves the rule. In American English, > the leading 'h' in 'hour' is =not= pronounced...so correct usage > there is '=an= hour.' But that's a rare exception. > > How about acronyms like RTF? Is it a RTF file (because R is a consonant) or an RTF file (because when R is pronounced it startes with a vowel *sound*)? See http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?ar According to the dictionary the letter R is spelled "ar" so it really does start with a vowel, even though it's a consonant. I'm a native English speaker, but was never taught this... Does anyone have an authoritative answer? I think it's "an RTF file" based on what I've said...but I need an authoritative answer to prove my English teacher wrong... :o) Sincerely, Peter Henderson peterhenderson@usa.net