Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 16:44:50 +0000 (GMT) From: Paul Richards <p.richards@elsevier.co.uk> To: fenner@parc.xerox.com (Bill Fenner) Cc: asami@freefall.freebsd.org, CVS-committers@freefall.freebsd.org, cvs-all@freefall.freebsd.org, cvs-ports@freefall.freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: ports/editors/bpatch/pkg COMMENT Message-ID: <199603221644.QAA07073@tees> In-Reply-To: <96Mar21.170544pst.177478@crevenia.parc.xerox.com> from "Bill Fenner" at Mar 21, 96 05:05:36 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
In reply to Bill Fenner who said > > In message <199603220045.QAA00471@freefall.freebsd.org> you write: > > ..."hex" doesn't start with a vowel > > Ah, but "webster a" says, among other things, > > |usage In speech and writing a is used before a consonant sound <a > | door> <a human> Before a vowel sound an is usual <an icicle> > | <an honor> but esp. in speech a is used occasionally, more > | often in some dialects than in others <a apple> <a hour> <a > | obligation> Before a consonant sound represented by a vowel letter > | a is usual <a one> <a union> but an also occurs though less > | frequently now than formerly <an unique> <such an one> Before > | unstressed or weakly stressed syllables with initial h both > | a and an are used in writing <a historic> <an historic> but > | in speech an is more frequent whether \h\ is pronounced or not. > | In the King James Version of the Old Testament and occasionally > | in writing and speech an is used before h in a stressed syllable > | > | <an huntress> <an hundred> <children are an heritage of the > | Lord -- Ps 127:3(AV)> This is really getting to me. I was always taught in school that you always and only used an in front of vowels. Seemed pretty sensible and straightforward to me. Of course, in speech you can do more or less what you please since none of us speak grammatical English. Now, the first draft of my Phd was returned with a big red message saying "a unit, not an unit!". Now I was a little peeved about this since my written English is pretty good so I complained and there was some disagreement and come concensus so I went away and found a reference. The reference said "a unit" !!! because of the pronounciation, i.e. "a ewwnit" rather than "an ummpire". When you say them slowly it sort of makes sense from a pronunciation viewpoint. So, I guess the moral of this story is that times are changing and no-one really agrees on the "grammatically correct" way to deal with 'a' and 'an' anymore since different dictionaries and references (and worse, teachers and lecturers so how the hell will it ever converge!) have diverging views on what's correct in modern English. I guess we're actually seeing an aspect of the language change much like many other aspects of it have (who ever says thee today). -- Paul Richards. Originative Solutions Ltd. (Netcraft Ltd. contractor) Elsevier Science TIS online journal project. Email: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk Phone: 0370 462071 (Mobile), +44 (0)1865 843155
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199603221644.QAA07073>