A or An? Its a question that is now confused with the increasing amount
of communication done purely in
text. In
spoken English, it is quite
simple: 'A' before a noun, 'An' before a vowel. Spoken is the key word
here - the
spoken language doesn't care if its
'
ewe' or '
you', '
won' or '
one'.
In written
English, the
vowels are defined as 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o' and 'u'. Thus, two
words that sound the same may mistakenly have two different ways to write
them: 'an ewe' and 'a you', or 'a won' and 'an one'. Try saying these
word pairs out loud and it is immediately apparent that 'an ewe' and
'an one'
sound wrong. There are other examples
that exist, '
http' is typically pronounced 'eitch-tee-tee-pee' and thus
starts with a vowel sound - 'a http' does not sound right at all. Likewise
'
SGML' is pronounced 'ess-jee-em-ell' and sounds wrong with 'a' in front of
it.
The key to deciding which indefinite article is correct is to say the word
and listen to the first sound. The a/an distinction was created for the
spoken language. Even though the rules do not fit well with many people's
ideas of how to write text, this is how it is meant to be.
Webster gives several very good examples of this in a and an.