Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

qov

Member Since

April 17, 2004

Total number of comments

2

Total number of votes received

1

Bio

Latest Comments

Would vs. Used To

  • July 6, 2004, 9:39pm

I'm a native speaker and I would say that the meanings of the two are identical but that the "would" construction is a little more formal, or poetic while the "used to" construction is more commonplace.

S

  • April 17, 2004, 11:34am

If a word starts with a vowel SOUND (not a vowel) then use an. Several consonants in English have names that start with vowel sounds: F (eff), H (aitch), L (ell), M (em), N (en), R (arr), S (ess), and X (eks). As someone has already noticed, the name of the vowel U (yu) starts with a consonant, so it is "a U". Words beginning in U but starting with the Y-sound also take a: a uniform, a university, but an umbrella.

In English an abbreviation might be pronounced like a word (RADAR, NASA) in which case it is called an acronym. It might be pronounced as a group of letters (SMS, DVD) in which case it is called an initialism.

So the article for the same abbreviation may change depending on how the person writing it pronounces it!