> And I have a similar aversion against "an Unix machine" (without > intention to offend Unix, but I would say "a Unix machine"). What do > natives think? So, isn't it only about the vowels a,e,i, after all?
For words that start with "u", if the initial sound is like a "you", one uses "a" instead of "an", e.g. "a university", or "a Unix machine", or "a unicorn". If the initial sound is closer to an "ah" (damn it's hard to write this down), one uses "an", e.g. "an unusual circumstance" versus "a usual circumstance". I hope this makes sense. Also, disclaimer: IANANES (I am not a native English speaker :) -- Alex Ghitza -- Lecturer in Mathematics -- The University of Melbourne -- Australia -- http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~aghitza/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URLs: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
