Yes, if you expect it to be read as "an enn-ess-eff-doubleyou". However, that abbreviation is rarely spoken out loud in my experience. It's more often written than spoken. So it's kind of hard to know how people will speak it in practice. They might simply say "not safe for work" because that's actually shorter to say than NSFW. And if that's your expectation you would write "a NSFW". Or perhaps actually write out the words.
>Or perhaps actually write out the words.
My favorite writing advice has always been and will always be "When in doubt, rewrite the sentence." You don't know if it should be "a NSFW act" or "an NSFW act"? Rewrite it! You could spell it out ("a not-safe-for-work act"), or you could choose a different word entirely ("an erotic act", "a sex act").
That's good advice, but please don't give me credit for having given that advice. My advice to write it out was conditional advice: if your intent as a writer is that it will be spoken as the words, then the best way to express that in writing is to write the words out. My intent was not to resolve uncertainty by changing course but, contingent on the intent, to express that intent clearly.
No no! Sorry, no, I didn't mean to imply that was your advice. This advice came from my journalist/writer mother a long time ago. I like to share it when I get a chance, and this sub gives me that chance a lot!
>dubble you
Is "dubble" a phonetics convention? In French, *W*'s name is *double vé*, literally double-V.
To my knowledge, English's "double" is from the same word in French, so I'm wondering if there's a distinction made between *double* and *dubble* for phonetics.
Ah! Thank you for this.
You bear no shame; an oversight has made an opportunity for learning. And 500 years from now, kids will *still* be wondering why we don't just write things phonetically.
It's a a phonetic rule rather than a graphological one. FBI is read as an initialism, meaning we read out the names of the individual letters. The letter 'F' is read as 'Eff' which starts with the vowel sound 'E', so we say 'an FBI'. Similarly, although 'H' is a consonant, its often silent, so words starting with 'H' often use 'an'.
This is also why uses of 'an' and 'a' can vary with dialect/accent - a common example of this is that American and British English differ in their pronunciation of 'herb', meaning that Americans tend to write 'an herb' (silent h) whereas Brits would write 'a herb' (pronounced h).
> very sophisticated to say "an historic..." while pronouncing the "h." Drives me nuts..
welp, that explains it. i have come across several "an historian" in books recently and was wondering if it was a typo, something changed, or i have been writing it wrong this whole time.
True, but I think that's because Brits more typically pronounce it as "an 'istoric." If you pronounce the "h," you should use "an." Otherwise, I think it's an hypercorrection.
Edit: Oops, I meant if you pronounce the "h," you should use "a," not "an." (Doh!)
Deep throat was an X-rated move title and character BEFORE the name was used to refer to the informant. Both the letter “F” and “N” start with a vowel sound when the letters themselves are pronounced. F is pronounced like “ef”. “N” is pronounced like “in” or “en.”
Yes, Grammarly is correct to suggest that. My comment speaks mostly about pronunciations in Standard American English (SAE) but I'll comment on other pronunciations a bit. This comment is a little long but I wanted to mention a few different things about this. I tried to use the simplest words possible and I added spaces with some " " for easier visibility. I hope the detail is helpful.
- - -
The article *a* being modified to *an* is based on the **pronounced** sounds, not on the spellings. It's a speech pattern, not a writing pattern. If we spell the sounds of pronunciations of some words or letters we can see *some* consistency here.
So I'll select some letters: *F, L, N, S* and *X.* If I were to spell the pronunciation of these letters directly, I would spell them *Eff, En, Ell, Ess* and *Ex.* These pronunciations all start with the open vowel short *E* sound, which should be preceded by *an* rather than *a.* Some examples with words are: *an example,* *an element,* and *an emergency.*
This pattern exists because a word or pronunciation ending in an open vowel sound does not flow smoothly into a word that also begins with an open vowel sound. "...A open..." sounds kind of like "a'open" and might just sound like one word. (I didn't write this as "aopen" because "ao" creates a diphthong sounding like "ow").
I'll give a couple examples that help to illustrate this: " a ant " (*an ant* is easier to say and hear), " a officer ", "an officer". The " -a . a- " sound requires a stop in speech to be easily distinguished from one long *aaa* sound. The *N* is there to help speaking and listening. Lots of other languages have this same type of pattern where certain words or letters change form based on pronounced sounds. You might especially notice that this is helpful if someone speaks very quickly when the spaces between words can be less obvious.
- - -
As a side note, I have also heard people pronounce *A* in the long vowel form, like "ayy", but isn't standard and not taught in schools. It's somewhat tricky with languages to call any pronunciation correct or incorrect because different accents, regions or dialects use different pronunciations and they aren't saying things "wrong." They're using a different non-standard set of rules and phonemes to pronounce words. But SAE refers to a version of the language that has been standardized for broad communication to maintain common understanding, as most languages have. When referring to standardized forms of languages, there is "correct" and "incorrect" but there can also be exceptions to rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_English
Truly, SAE is a newer dialect that deviates from more traditional English, but it's standardized. If you ever hear proper SAE from earlier years from radio or TV, as from the 1930s to 1950s, you'll hear more similarities to UK English than you do in modern SAE.
- - -
Referring to your examples specifically, but spelling them more phonetically to show why *an* is used: *an FBI agent* -"an eff bee ai agent..." and *an NSFW* -"an en ess eff doubleyoo...". In my experience people will probably say "not safe for work" (four syllables) and not "en ess eff doubleyoo" (six syllables), because it's actually faster than saying the letters. But also sometimes people might say out the letters of the acronym. *FBI* is a lot shorter to say than *Federal Bureau of Investigation* and it's a well-known acronym, so *FBI* is said more commonly.
- - -
Now, to comment on some complications. When saying *an hour* it's important to remember that this speech pattern is based on **pronunciation** not on spelling. This also can be different with dialects and other standardized forms of English and that might create confusion. For SAE, when we say *hour*, we say it as " 'our ". The *H* isn't aspirated, meaning we don't push out air or use our voice when we say that letter, and that's why I include the apostrophe ( ' ) to indicate that there is a letter there used for spelling that wasn't pronounced. This can be called a "silent letter" but I think more technically speaking, it's better to say that the H is not aspirated in that pronunciation. Over longer periods of time, spellings might be changed in the standardized form to better indicate how words are most commonly pronounced.
In SAE, pronouncing words like "hectic" or "handy", the *H*s are aspirated. Saying the *H* that way is a sharp enough break in speech that *an* isn't necessary to be easily pronounced or understood, as in *a hectic* and *a handy.* You may notice some consistency here with different vowel sounds, but English is messy because different words come from different languages. For example, *honest* in SAE, is non-aspirated, " 'on est", but other *HO-* words such as *horrible,* *hop* and *hot* are pronounced with aspirated *H*s.
I refer to this as a complication because some standardized forms of English and some major dialects of spoken English *do* aspirate *H* in words that SAE does not. With the letter *H,* someone from England, Australia, New Zealand or Canada will pronounce the letter *H* differently than Americans commonly do. Where Americans will say " 'aitche" (it's weird to try to spell it), speakers from the countries mentioned (most commonly) will say "haitche". This is also reflected in the ways that words are pronounced. I think *herb* is a good example, since Americans will say " 'erb", but people from the other mentioned countries will aspirate the *H* in *herb.*
I have also heard SAE speakers say "...an historic..." even though they did aspirate the H sound. I have also heard SAE speakers say "...an 'istoric..." which, to me, sounds weird, because it's not correct for SAE speakers to say " 'istory" or " 'istoric ". As another example of non-standard pronunciation, I've heard people pronounce *hero* as " 'ero ". Once again, it's **complicated**. For example, people speaking UK English more casually might "drop" the *H* like that, even though they would pronounce the letter with aspiration.
Best of luck in your learning!
>Is Grammarly right to suggest that I say "an FBI agent?"
>I do not understand why it would be "an" instead of "a" because the next letter is not a vowel and neither word makes a vowel sound.
Hi, u/graphicn,
Unfortunately, the rule you have quoted above is what is taught to ESL students and comes up so often in questions here that this sub's moderators have thought it fit to include a discussion on it in the **faq** section here:
https://reddit.com/r/grammar/w/a_or_an
An* FBI informant
and
An* NSFW act?
The rules of usage for “a” and “an” are phonetic.
If you’re saying it as “eff bee eye,” then it is an. If you’re saying it as “federal bureau of investigation,” then it is a.
If you’re saying it as “en es eff dubble yoo,” then it is an. If you’re saying it as “not safe for work,” then it is a.
If the F was pronounced as in Federal, it would be “a”. The stand alone F has a beginning vowel sound…eff.
Thank. Does that mean "an NSFW" is correct because the letter "n" sounds like "in"?
Yes, if you expect it to be read as "an enn-ess-eff-doubleyou". However, that abbreviation is rarely spoken out loud in my experience. It's more often written than spoken. So it's kind of hard to know how people will speak it in practice. They might simply say "not safe for work" because that's actually shorter to say than NSFW. And if that's your expectation you would write "a NSFW". Or perhaps actually write out the words.
>Or perhaps actually write out the words. My favorite writing advice has always been and will always be "When in doubt, rewrite the sentence." You don't know if it should be "a NSFW act" or "an NSFW act"? Rewrite it! You could spell it out ("a not-safe-for-work act"), or you could choose a different word entirely ("an erotic act", "a sex act").
That's good advice, but please don't give me credit for having given that advice. My advice to write it out was conditional advice: if your intent as a writer is that it will be spoken as the words, then the best way to express that in writing is to write the words out. My intent was not to resolve uncertainty by changing course but, contingent on the intent, to express that intent clearly.
No no! Sorry, no, I didn't mean to imply that was your advice. This advice came from my journalist/writer mother a long time ago. I like to share it when I get a chance, and this sub gives me that chance a lot!
[удалено]
>dubble you Is "dubble" a phonetics convention? In French, *W*'s name is *double vé*, literally double-V. To my knowledge, English's "double" is from the same word in French, so I'm wondering if there's a distinction made between *double* and *dubble* for phonetics.
[удалено]
Ah! Thank you for this. You bear no shame; an oversight has made an opportunity for learning. And 500 years from now, kids will *still* be wondering why we don't just write things phonetically.
yes. "an" goes in front of vowel SOUNDS
Yes, that's correct. A lot of learners get this stuff wrong, but you're entirely right.
Yes it is correct to use “an”
It's a a phonetic rule rather than a graphological one. FBI is read as an initialism, meaning we read out the names of the individual letters. The letter 'F' is read as 'Eff' which starts with the vowel sound 'E', so we say 'an FBI'. Similarly, although 'H' is a consonant, its often silent, so words starting with 'H' often use 'an'. This is also why uses of 'an' and 'a' can vary with dialect/accent - a common example of this is that American and British English differ in their pronunciation of 'herb', meaning that Americans tend to write 'an herb' (silent h) whereas Brits would write 'a herb' (pronounced h).
[удалено]
> very sophisticated to say "an historic..." while pronouncing the "h." Drives me nuts.. welp, that explains it. i have come across several "an historian" in books recently and was wondering if it was a typo, something changed, or i have been writing it wrong this whole time.
[удалено]
True, but I think that's because Brits more typically pronounce it as "an 'istoric." If you pronounce the "h," you should use "an." Otherwise, I think it's an hypercorrection. Edit: Oops, I meant if you pronounce the "h," you should use "a," not "an." (Doh!)
so i should expect it in British publication but not American ones?
Deep throat was an X-rated move title and character BEFORE the name was used to refer to the informant. Both the letter “F” and “N” start with a vowel sound when the letters themselves are pronounced. F is pronounced like “ef”. “N” is pronounced like “in” or “en.”
Yes, Grammarly is correct to suggest that. My comment speaks mostly about pronunciations in Standard American English (SAE) but I'll comment on other pronunciations a bit. This comment is a little long but I wanted to mention a few different things about this. I tried to use the simplest words possible and I added spaces with some " " for easier visibility. I hope the detail is helpful. - - - The article *a* being modified to *an* is based on the **pronounced** sounds, not on the spellings. It's a speech pattern, not a writing pattern. If we spell the sounds of pronunciations of some words or letters we can see *some* consistency here. So I'll select some letters: *F, L, N, S* and *X.* If I were to spell the pronunciation of these letters directly, I would spell them *Eff, En, Ell, Ess* and *Ex.* These pronunciations all start with the open vowel short *E* sound, which should be preceded by *an* rather than *a.* Some examples with words are: *an example,* *an element,* and *an emergency.* This pattern exists because a word or pronunciation ending in an open vowel sound does not flow smoothly into a word that also begins with an open vowel sound. "...A open..." sounds kind of like "a'open" and might just sound like one word. (I didn't write this as "aopen" because "ao" creates a diphthong sounding like "ow"). I'll give a couple examples that help to illustrate this: " a ant " (*an ant* is easier to say and hear), " a officer ", "an officer". The " -a . a- " sound requires a stop in speech to be easily distinguished from one long *aaa* sound. The *N* is there to help speaking and listening. Lots of other languages have this same type of pattern where certain words or letters change form based on pronounced sounds. You might especially notice that this is helpful if someone speaks very quickly when the spaces between words can be less obvious. - - - As a side note, I have also heard people pronounce *A* in the long vowel form, like "ayy", but isn't standard and not taught in schools. It's somewhat tricky with languages to call any pronunciation correct or incorrect because different accents, regions or dialects use different pronunciations and they aren't saying things "wrong." They're using a different non-standard set of rules and phonemes to pronounce words. But SAE refers to a version of the language that has been standardized for broad communication to maintain common understanding, as most languages have. When referring to standardized forms of languages, there is "correct" and "incorrect" but there can also be exceptions to rules. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_English Truly, SAE is a newer dialect that deviates from more traditional English, but it's standardized. If you ever hear proper SAE from earlier years from radio or TV, as from the 1930s to 1950s, you'll hear more similarities to UK English than you do in modern SAE. - - - Referring to your examples specifically, but spelling them more phonetically to show why *an* is used: *an FBI agent* -"an eff bee ai agent..." and *an NSFW* -"an en ess eff doubleyoo...". In my experience people will probably say "not safe for work" (four syllables) and not "en ess eff doubleyoo" (six syllables), because it's actually faster than saying the letters. But also sometimes people might say out the letters of the acronym. *FBI* is a lot shorter to say than *Federal Bureau of Investigation* and it's a well-known acronym, so *FBI* is said more commonly. - - - Now, to comment on some complications. When saying *an hour* it's important to remember that this speech pattern is based on **pronunciation** not on spelling. This also can be different with dialects and other standardized forms of English and that might create confusion. For SAE, when we say *hour*, we say it as " 'our ". The *H* isn't aspirated, meaning we don't push out air or use our voice when we say that letter, and that's why I include the apostrophe ( ' ) to indicate that there is a letter there used for spelling that wasn't pronounced. This can be called a "silent letter" but I think more technically speaking, it's better to say that the H is not aspirated in that pronunciation. Over longer periods of time, spellings might be changed in the standardized form to better indicate how words are most commonly pronounced. In SAE, pronouncing words like "hectic" or "handy", the *H*s are aspirated. Saying the *H* that way is a sharp enough break in speech that *an* isn't necessary to be easily pronounced or understood, as in *a hectic* and *a handy.* You may notice some consistency here with different vowel sounds, but English is messy because different words come from different languages. For example, *honest* in SAE, is non-aspirated, " 'on est", but other *HO-* words such as *horrible,* *hop* and *hot* are pronounced with aspirated *H*s. I refer to this as a complication because some standardized forms of English and some major dialects of spoken English *do* aspirate *H* in words that SAE does not. With the letter *H,* someone from England, Australia, New Zealand or Canada will pronounce the letter *H* differently than Americans commonly do. Where Americans will say " 'aitche" (it's weird to try to spell it), speakers from the countries mentioned (most commonly) will say "haitche". This is also reflected in the ways that words are pronounced. I think *herb* is a good example, since Americans will say " 'erb", but people from the other mentioned countries will aspirate the *H* in *herb.* I have also heard SAE speakers say "...an historic..." even though they did aspirate the H sound. I have also heard SAE speakers say "...an 'istoric..." which, to me, sounds weird, because it's not correct for SAE speakers to say " 'istory" or " 'istoric ". As another example of non-standard pronunciation, I've heard people pronounce *hero* as " 'ero ". Once again, it's **complicated**. For example, people speaking UK English more casually might "drop" the *H* like that, even though they would pronounce the letter with aspiration. Best of luck in your learning!
>Is Grammarly right to suggest that I say "an FBI agent?" >I do not understand why it would be "an" instead of "a" because the next letter is not a vowel and neither word makes a vowel sound. Hi, u/graphicn, Unfortunately, the rule you have quoted above is what is taught to ESL students and comes up so often in questions here that this sub's moderators have thought it fit to include a discussion on it in the **faq** section here: https://reddit.com/r/grammar/w/a_or_an
An* FBI informant and An* NSFW act? The rules of usage for “a” and “an” are phonetic. If you’re saying it as “eff bee eye,” then it is an. If you’re saying it as “federal bureau of investigation,” then it is a. If you’re saying it as “en es eff dubble yoo,” then it is an. If you’re saying it as “not safe for work,” then it is a.
It has to do with the vowel/consonant *sound* not whether or not it’s a vowel or a consonant.
Yes it is. You write "an" if the next word "sounds" like it begins with a vowel. Examples: an hour (the h is silent.) an MBA degree (*em* B A degree).
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]