[geeks] Re: OT: unemployment and eating...

[Gavin Hubbard]

>On Thursday, August 14, 2003, at 10:58 AM, Sandwich Maker wrote:
>
>> "From: "Michael A. Turner" <mturner at whro.org>
>> "
>> "Be nice or I won't give you a shrubbery.
>>
>> -an- shrubbery.
>
>"HEAD KNIGHT:  We want... a shrubbery!
>       [dramatic chord]"
>
>The English geek in me can't help it...:
>"A is used before words that begin with consonant sounds (a rock, a 
>large park) and an is used before vowel sounds (an interesting subject, 
>an apple).  However, note that the choice of a or an depends on 
>pronunciation, not spelling."
>
>=Nadine=


Yes - you need to be especially careful of this when you're dealing with
abbreviations as they may have implicit vowel sounds in their leading
letter e.g. _An_ MX record on _a_ DNS server may use _an_ FQDN to refer to
a host inside the zone.

When I was at school we were also taught to use 'an' if the following word
started with the letter h. In my experience this practice is fading from
general usage so I've used "a host" in the example above. 

Regards,

Gavin