A or An?

[Tdol]

Its not even as simple as the word starts with a vowel sound (an) or not (a) though that covers most words. Some h sound words use an, an historical point.

An historical should be pronounced with with a silent h, like an hour/heir. Sadly, some think that it is some sort of elevated style to use an and then pronounce the H- it's hypercorrection (and intensely irritating IMO)

[Nightmare85]

I think the poll should be changed/fixed whatever.
It only confuses new members because the wrong answer has more votes...

Cheers!

[EngFan]

A university, A URL

[ackeiyword]

I think it should be "an",because the URL is satrted with the letter U,but actually i see many people use "a",so now i am also confused.

[Nightmare85]

I think it should be "an",because the URL is satrted with the letter U,but actually i see many people use "a",so now i am also confused.

If you had read the other members' posts, you wouldn't have been confused.
The only true answer is "A URL".
I said it like a hundred times:
It does not matter whether a word starts with a vowel or not.

Please, read this:
http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/fr...-alphabet.html

Cheers!

[Amal-30]

The correct answer is a.
The letter u is a vowel but in the universal word it sounds as a consonant like when we say a university.

[Muhammad AZAM]

URL takes 'a' before it because it does not have a vowel sound. although it starts with 'u' a vowel, it doesn't have vowel sound.

[sana618]

Dear students, "u" is a semi-vowel;this means that sometimes it behaves as a vowel like in "umbrella","ultimatum","underproduction"etc when an"an" is necessary.Other times it behaves like a consonant as in "university","union","unique" when an "a" is needed.Practice will help!

I'm a bit confused here by your post kalli. Please correct me if I'm wrong but isn't 'Y' a semi vowel and 'U' a complete vowel as the 5 vowels of English language are "A,E,I,O,U."
And we say "an umbrella" and "an ultimatum" and while talking about "underproduction" I don't think that we use an or a for ex - The movie we were talking about is underproduction. or The new perfume is still under production.

[Anuj- Badboy]

Why?

Because it is a vowel?
u use An?

[Eden Darien]

An historical should be pronounced with with a silent h, like an hour/heir. Sadly, some think that it is some sort of elevated style to use an and then pronounce the H- it's hypercorrection (and intensely irritating IMO)

Yup, Some people think I am a posh wannabe.. hehe