Comment on Reality vs Fantasy

• ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

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

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    • DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Or when they ask for a nonion.

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      • jaennaet@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Fun English facts: “apron” used to be “napron”, but “a napron” was eventually incorrectly split into “an apron”. Same with “adder” which used to be “naddre”, and “umpire” which was “noumpere”

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• philthi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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 ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ 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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