Question

I've been looking for something authoritative regarding the starting sounds of vowels (and what indefinite article to put before initialisms starting with the letter A), but I haven't found it yet.

The rule: put "a" before initialisms (e.g., FBI) that begin with a vowel sound, and put "an" before those that begin with a consonant sound.

F, H, L, M, N, S, and X are consonants beginning with a vowel sound.

But I can't find anything regarding vowels that begin with consonant sounds. Experience suggests that U is the only one. But someone (a boss, actually) has told me that A does. Is he right?

Answer 1

I've been looking for something authoritative regarding the starting sounds of vowels (and what indefinite article to put before initialisms starting with the letter A), but I haven't found it yet.


Although some people would say Wikipedia is not an authoritative, it does give a person a good place to start searching for an authoritative. Anyways, I do not know of one right off hand but I can vouch for the information below, which was taken from Wikipedia.


An indefinite article indicates that its noun is not a particular one (or ones) identifiable to the listener. It may be something that the speaker is mentioning for the first time, or its precise identity may be irrelevant or hypothetical, or the speaker may be making a general statement about any such thing. English uses a/an, from the Old English forms of the number 'one', as its primary indefinite article. The form an is used before words that begin with a vowel sound (even if spelled with an initial consonant, as in an hour), and a before words that begin with a consonant sound (even if spelled with a vowel, as in a European)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_(grammar)#Indefinite_article