WordPress.org

1. mike
   Member
   Posted 7 years ago #

   ...but shouldn't it be
   TrackBack a URL
   not
   TrackBack an URL
   I swear that acronyms always get 'a' in front of them, no? :)

2. NuclearMoose
   Member
   Posted 7 years ago #

   mike,
   It's a to-MAY-to versus to-MAH-to thing...
   You say "YOU ARE ELL" he says "EARL"
   :|

3. mike
   Member
   Posted 7 years ago #

   :) I am from Wisconsin, so I say WAY-gon.
   However, the previous post refers to proper grammar, not speech.

4. Anonymous
   Unregistered
   Posted 7 years ago #

   It's "a" if it precedes a consonant, and "an" if it precedes a vowel. The question is whether one sees "URL" as starting with a consonant or a vowel. It seems obvious enough, since "U" is a vowel, but since we generally prounounce this acronym as "You-Are-El," in fact the phrase is understood to start with a consonant sound.

5. mike
   Member
   Posted 7 years ago #

   Right. I thought that it was actually a gramattical rule though (not something stemming from pronunciation), specifically for acronyms. Whatev.

6. Root
   Member
   Posted 7 years ago #

   No it stems from pronunciation not the strict application of the rule. Hence an hotel.

7. Anonymous
   Unregistered
   Posted 7 years ago #

   An Hotel?
   Since when?
   I worked at a hotel for about 8 years, and it was always A hotel at An airport.

8. mike
   Member
   Posted 7 years ago #

   Really? I am going to ask my english phd friend.

9. Anonymous
   Unregistered
   Posted 7 years ago #

   It's an hotel not a hotel. The h is considered as a modifier of the initial vowel.
   Also in the readme.html it says:
   "It is best to keep the address dicrete."
   I presume that should read "discrete".

10. plainsman
    Member
    Posted 7 years ago #

    A or An.
    Use "an" in place of "a" when it precedes a vowel 'sound', not just a vowel.
    That means it's "an honor" (the h is silent), but "a UFO" (because it's pronounced yoo eff oh).
    This confuses people most often with acronyms and other abbreviations: some people think it's wrong to use "an" in front of an abbreviation (like "MRI") because "an" can only go before vowels.
    Poppycock: the sound is what matters. It's "an MRI," assuming you pronounce it "em ar eye."
    Does this help?

11. plainsman
    Member
    Posted 7 years ago #

    uh, by the way - the above comes from the
    Lynch Guide to Grammar and Style at Rutgers University
    http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/a.html

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.