Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:13:19 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> Cc: Jamie Bowden <ragnar@sysabend.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr>, Alexey Dokuchaev <danfe@regency.nsu.ru>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c Message-ID: <3CEAB86F.2D874846@mindspring.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10205210519130.80170-100000@moo.sysabend.org> <p05111708b90ff38b1dcb@[10.0.1.4]>
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Brad Knowles wrote: > At 5:21 AM -0700 2002/05/21, Jamie Bowden wrote: > > How about we just nitpick your grammar instead? you wouldn't say "I'm > > sending you an mail," and it's just as inappropriate a usage with > > reference to electronic mail. > > > > Somewhere, hiding in this message, is a misspelling or grammatical error, > > as is customary. > > Nah, here Rahul is actually correct. You use "an e-mail" or "an > email" either way, because of the a/an issue with the following word > beginning with a consonant vs. a vowel. > > The real problem is when you are referring to something via an > acronym or initialism, and the acronym/initialism sounds like it > begins with a vowel, whereas the actual phrase spelled out begins > with a consonant. Take "WWW" for example -- is it "an WWW page" or > "a WWW page"? Clearly, if you were to spell it out, it would be "a > world-wide web page", but how do you deal with the initialism? It's pronunciation dependent, actually. The rule is really "a pronounced vowel". That's why we have "an hour" and "an SCO employee". Since "WWW" begins with a pronounced consonant, it's "a WWW page". Proper grammer would probably be "a page on the WWW", though... -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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