Subject:
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Re: Prolific Upcoming Weekend!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.fun
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Date:
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Mon, 9 Dec 2002 18:09:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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3127 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Frank Filz writes:
> Tim Courtney wrote:
> >
> > In lugnet.trains.org, John Neal writes:
> > > This could be a historic weekend for number of LTC showing at one time!
> >
> > *an* historic...
>
> How official is this? I know some people pronounce historic with a soft
> or almost non-existent h making "an" the appropriate article. However, I
> pronounce history with a hard h, making the appropriate article "a" (or
> at least it sounds awkward to me to say "an historic" as opposed to "a
> historic" or "an istoric").
>
> Hmm, just checked what MS Word's grammar checker said. It allows either
> "a" or "an" for historic but requires "an" before "hour".
>
> I'm always fighting MS Word though on the appropriate article before an
> abbreviation. For example, I would say "The program was an SMTP
> compliant e-mailer." because I pronounce out the letters of the
> abbreviation ("es em tee pee"). On the other hand, I would say "The
> weapon is a LASER." since I pronounce LASER as a word, not as "el a es e
> ar".
>
> Frank
I'd say that's 'cause (there's bad grammar right there for ya!) for you and
me and average Joe, LASER is just a word now, is no longer an acronym, so we
just say 'laser', much like SNAFU is not spelled out--it's 'a snafu'.
However, we do say S-M-T-P for it doesn't seem to form a pronouncable word
on its own and has to be spelled out, so you get the 'es-em-tee-pee',
therefore you get the "an SMTP..."
So there you are.
Dave K
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Prolific Upcoming Weekend!
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| (...) How official is this? I know some people pronounce historic with a soft or almost non-existent h making "an" the appropriate article. However, I pronounce history with a hard h, making the appropriate article "a" (or at least it sounds awkward (...) (24 years ago, 9-Dec-02, to lugnet.off-topic.fun)
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