"A" always preceeds a consanant. "An" a vowel.

Very simply grammer rule that I've never had problems with. Until now.

Why do I want to say "An FTP server"?

Weird...

I think it's accepted that acronyms whose phonetics imply different spellings, such as Eff Tee Pee (where the initial letter is E, as in vowel), dictate use of An.

What I can never get my head around is why the correct form is "An hotel" - which never sounds nor reads correctly to me, though I know it's the proper form.

Any ideas?

John

go with an, if you can't rephrase it to avoid!

Z

I've decided (unilaterally) this should be public :-)

Anyone want to E-Mail Lynne Truss?

It appears that the correct form is AN for a word starting with an H
(in some cases) Hour, Historical (but not history) etc....

If anyone can expand on this?


DaveA

...Perhaps it's because of a semi-silent "H"?

From what I recall from studying language and linguistics at university, it's also got to do with where teh stress appears (hence a history/an historical event).

Or something!

Z