(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

Flist! Grammar question! AN utilitarian sensibility or A utilitarian sensibility? I automatically went with AN but then I was thinking about the fact that the a/an rule is a result of spoken english - not starting words with a vowel sound (which is why the validity of the an/a hotel rule is dependent on how you say hotel.) "Utilitarian" doesn't start with a vowel sound, it starts with a Y sound. We wouldn't say "an yellow sunflower", would we? Opinions?

ETA: never mind, google told me. "A utilitarian sensibility."

ETA again: I CANNOT stop reading about public health inequities. Since I'm writing an essay on public health inequities, this wouldn't be a problem, except that the essay's due at 5pm, I have another thousand words to go, and I can't put the stuff down to start typing. SO INTERESTING.

Comments

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Hey, that means Americans should technically write "an herb". Wow. That looks *so weird* to me.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have this really bad habit where I instinctively feel that words beginning with "h", normally just words from the french but other ones too, *should* be preceded by "an"; but I know the a/an rule. So instead of saying a hotel, or a herb, I say... an otel. an erb. This is RIDICULOUS and petty. But...

[claystarling.livejournal.com]

While in general it's easy to decide a/an based on whether the article is preceding a consonant or a vowel, what really matters is the pronunciation.