From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Mar 22 18:09:59 1996 Return-Path: owner-chat Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id SAA20597 for chat-outgoing; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 18:09:59 -0800 (PST) Received: from time.cdrom.com (time.cdrom.com [204.216.27.226]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA20592 for ; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 18:09:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by time.cdrom.com (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id SAA22840; Fri, 22 Mar 1996 18:08:03 -0800 (PST) To: asami@cs.berkeley.edu (Satoshi Asami) cc: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk, fenner@parc.xerox.com, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: ports/editors/bpatch/pkg COMMENT In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 22 Mar 1996 17:26:00 PST." <199603230126.RAA10970@sunrise.cs.berkeley.edu> Date: Fri, 22 Mar 1996 18:08:03 -0800 Message-ID: <22838.827546883@time.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > Hmm. I always thought it's the pronounciation. If a `u' is > pronounced like a `you', as in `unit' (`you-knit'), it's a consonant, > and if it's pronounced like a weak `a', it's treated as a vowel as far > as articles are concerned. > > What about `an unpleasent experience'? Do you say `a' here? I think that words like `unpleasant' are a special case given that they're pronounced differently (you don't say "yoon-pleasant" unless you're from Scotland, and then nobody can understand your english anyway so it doesn't really matter). That's the key here, I think. If the starting `u' is *pronounced* like a `u' (yoo) then you say `a'. If its pronounced like `ah' or `uh' or something similar then the other rule kicks in. Don't forget, this is not so much a _grammatical_ rule that follows the lines of the alphabet, this is a *pronounciation* rule derived from the fact that saying things like "a apple" just doesn't roll off the tongue very well. Nobody ever said that english was a language that made much sense, hell, it's a walking card-catalog of special cases. It's often a matter of great wonder to me that non-native speakers learn it at all! Jordan