A Word, Please: How to navigate the a/an conundrum

The FBI seal in the lobby of the San Diego office.

By June Casagrande

April 18, 2022 2:43 PM PT

A while back, when office work was still a thing and I was surrounded by people called “colleagues,” I wrote a sentence on a piece of paper then walked to several co-workers’ desks. “Would you read this aloud?” I asked, then I held up the paper marked with the words “the 1,100-square-foot property is for sale.”

They looked at me like I had a hidden agenda, which I did. But they indulged me anyway.

“The one thousand, one hundred square foot property,” some said. “The eleven hundred square foot property,” others said.

I had asked because I was editing an article with a similar, though not identical sentence. Instead of the definite article “the” in front of the number, the piece I was editing had an indefinite article, and I wanted to know whether it should be “a” or “an.”

English has just two indefinite articles and the choice between them is usually easy. “A” precedes a consonant sound: a cat, a truck, a man. “An” precedes a vowel sound: an idea, an octopus, an intelligent octopus.

Usually, a word starts with a vowel sound because it starts with a vowel — an umpire —or it starts with a consonant sound because it starts with a consonant — a referee. But not always. The word “university,” for example, starts with a consonant sound: Y. That’s why you say “a university” and not “an university.”

Even in these cases, “a” and “an” are easy for native English speakers.

Sometimes an indefinite article that comes naturally when you’re speaking can make you second-guess yourself when you’re writing. For example, some struggle with the question of which article to use before an abbreviation like “FBI.” F is a consonant and it stands for a word that begins with a consonant sound, “federal.” But when you say the letter F, you start with a vowel sound: “eff.” That’s why when you’re speaking, you say “an FBI agent” and not “a FBI agent.”

Whether speaking or writing, the rule is based on pronunciation. So you’d write “an FBI agent.”

People disagree on how to handle “historic.” But there’s no wrong answer. If you treat the H as silent or nearly silent, you can use “an historic.” People who prefer this method point out that, because “historic” puts the stress on its second syllable, “stor,” the first syllable is all but lost without “an” in front of it. People who pronounce the H use “a historic.”

The Associated Press Stylebook, which I follow in my editing work, says it’s “a historic.” So that’s how I do it. The guide for book and magazine publishers, the Chicago Manual of Style, is less rigid: “The word ‘historical’ and its variations cause missteps, but if the H in these words is pronounced, it takes an A (an hour-long walk at a historical society).”

Not interested in what the style guides say? You can take your cue from a dictionary. Merriam-Webster says “historic” is pronounced with an audible H. You can hear it spoken aloud by pressing the little speaker button next to the word in its online dictionary entry.

My favorite a/an conundrum has also made the rounds to co-workers’ desks on a piece of paper. I asked colleagues to read the sentence “Look for a hotel with a high rating from AAA.” Most didn’t say “a, a, a.” They said “triple a.” And because the rule about indefinite articles is based on pronunciation, not spelling, you’d write “a AAA-rated hotel” and not “an AAA-rated hotel.”

I was curious how the automobile club did it, so I checked the California AAA website. There, down at the bottom, are the words “Become a AAA Approved Auto Repair facility.” So they pronounce it with T, too.

June Casagrande is the author of “The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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A Word, Please: How to navigate the a/an conundrum

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