Comment on Reality vs Fantasy

• CatZoomies@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  In American English, the article “an” is used for a vowel sound to separate the words so they don’t blend together when speaking.

  Normally, “a” always precedents a consonant, while “an” precedes a vowel. But “an” also precedes vowel sounds - I.e., the sound of the letter of the beginning of a word.

  An apple A banana An hour

  Hour starts with a consonant, but is pronounced with a vowel sound at the beginning. Thus, it is not “a hour” and rather “an hour”.

  In the case of the example from the meme, id argue that either article works:

  • A “I’m…” - Typically when speaking, a person has a brief pause before they begin the quote. Since that pause would be enough to distinctly indicate two separate words, this sounds fine when being verbally spoken.
  • An “I’m…” - Looks great in text and would be the correct way to list it grammatically. However when speaking this aloud, since the person would have a brief pause when saying “an” and then the quote, it probably wouldn’t sound as great to some others.

  My take - I like “an ‘I’m…’” best. Both in text and verbal form. Others may disagree as far as verbally said; however, grammatically in written form this is how it should be.

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  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    This does get confusing with say…

    “A/An herb.”

    Because different dialects pronounce herb differently, sometimes the ‘h’ is pronounced, sometimes not.

    I know you specified American English, but even within American English, you can find areas that differ on this, and I’m sure there are other words where this kind of thing crops up.

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    • dankm@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Sometimes you get article transfer as well. The English word “apron” comes from the obsolete “napron”, in turn from Old French “napperon”.

      People heard “a napron”, which became “an apron”, which eventually led to the main word being “apron”.

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      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Hah, I’d never heard that before!

        That is amusing =p

        Wait, does muse / amuse have a similar etymology?

        A musing, musing, here I go amusing again…

        Something like that?

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• evening_push579@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  English being my second language, from why I’ve learnt, “a […] mindset” is correct.

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  • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The rule I’ve always used is that if the first letter of the word is a vowel, it’s “an” and if it isn’t use “a”.

    For example, “an apple” or “a potato”.

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    • TheGenuineGT@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      For anyone scrolling, I’ve followed a similar rule. Except an is used anytime the following word makes a phonetic vowel sound. E.g ah, eh, ee, oh, ooh

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    • squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Tell that to British midlanders: “Can I have a glass of wo’a?”

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      • DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Or when they ask for a nonion.

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  • philthi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Native English speaker here. This is incorrect, the “n” is added for phonetic help “a elephant” involves an awkward break between the two words, so enter “n” to help mouth muscles work around that.

    This is the same reason for weird artifacts like: “a unicorn” because unicorn starts with. “Yoo” sound and so mouths don’t need the help of the “n” to break up the awkwardness.

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  • accideath@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Also seconds language but I’ve learned it depends on how the first letter of the following word is spoken. If the following word has a vocal sound (even if the first letter is technically a consonant), it’s ‘an’, which it thusly would also be here.

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