Dear friend, A history, a UFO are correct. You assumption about a history and an MBE are also quite right. You should pay attention to the way the initial sound of a word is pronounced, and not to the way it is represented graphically. Thus, if h

The choice of a or an is not based on the initial written letter. It is based on the initial sound. You have to listen to sounds, not look at letters, to decide. The most common examples are with words that start with the "y" sound,

Hi there, I was wondering about the following matter: Why do we use the indef. art. a -> /ə/ before words that start with a consonant sound? And why do we use the indef. art. an -> /ən/ before words that start with a vowel sound? The

You don't have to pronounce the word in a particular way anywhere. It is merely an observation that for the purposes of clarity and word flow, most native speakers use /thi:/ before vowel sounds and /thə/ before consonant sounds.

Well Howard... This is one my my most fervent pet peaves... I can't stand when I hear newscasters, politicians and even academics trying to sound ed-ja-ma-kated by using "an history" instead of "a history". What you

These should cover 99% of the uses: a & an : before noun phrases containing an unspecified or newly-mentioned noun; use a before a word beginning with a consonant sound and use an before a word beginning with a vowel sound. the : before noun

History of English Language-Funny or reality? In the beginning, there was an island off the coast of Europe. It had no name, for the natives had no language, only a collection of grunts and gestures that roughly translated to Hey!Gimme!, and

I agree. It actually really vexes me when people use "a" in front of an acronym. Even though the previous post has been up for quite some time, maybe someone will run across this and find it helpful. Here is my reasoning: So, yes, we all

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE TH Present Simple Tense - In case of preceded by the third person singular, the verb that changes in form is Verb to be and Verb to have - In case we add

Here is the most complete set of rules I could come up with: - If a word ends with a consonant-vowel-consonant combination (C-V-C), and the word * has only one syllable (ex.: get) OR * the last syllable in a word with two or more syllables is