Usage of "a" and "an"

[Giugiaro]

Best not to try Strathaven then

Read that in a German accent (Shtra-te haa-venn), I don't know why...
But I guess it's Straeven? Like in raven (crow)?

 

[hexagon789]

Read that in a German accent (Shtra-te haa-venn), I don't know why...
But I guess it's Straeven? Like in raven (crow)?

Yes - Stray-vin

 

[Giugiaro]

"th" is such a magical pair of letters...

I still remember when I used to say "dick" instead of "thick" back in Middle School

 

[takno]

Or Milngavie

Milngavie is easy. You just start off with good intentions and then just kind of get bored and give up halfway through the second syllable

 

[GusB]

Best not to try Strathaven then

I wasn't aware of the existence of "Straven" until I did a spell at directory enquiries in the early 2000s. "And how exactly are you spelling Straven, sir...?"

 

[AlterEgo]

'Our' is often confusing because at primary school we were taught (by nuns!) to pronounce it as arrr, whereas everyone else seems to use ower

It depends on where "our" is in the sentence and the emphasis you're trying to place on it, as well as regional dialects. I have a neutral Home Counties accent, and in the sentence "We forgot our tickets; they're back at the hotel" I'd probably say "ahrr". But if I was saying something punchy like "Our rights! Our responsibilities! Our nation!" I'd probably use "ower", without even thinking!

The "ahrr" intonation is very frequently found in northern England and in Northern Ireland - incidentally the way to do a caricatured East Belfast accent is to misappropriate half of the vowels for others - especially I sounds - and exaggerate the rest. "That was an unacceptable provocation - the fare was one pound sixty and he kicked off at me!" becomes "that was an on-ax-sap-tabble proh-voh-cay-tion - tha furr was wan pound saxty and he kacked aff at me!"

 

[Cowley]

Brilliant.
My other half is Northern Irish, and we spend a furr amoont of urr tame mimickin atch othorr...

 

[DarloRich]

Definitely le Street for me. Lee would be somewhere spelled with 'lea' as part of the word.

For my own entry, my home town is Chester le Street (the le pronounced as per the French word for the), so many people (including so many from the North East of England) pronounce it Chester lee Street (oh and Houghton Lee Spring for Houghton le Spring too)

Everyone pronounces it Chester Lee Street same as Houghton Lee Spring. I should know. Houghton is where most of my family live. My gran who lived there all her life pronounced it Lee not Le. That will do for me.

My Grandad used to say he was off to Chester when he was off to Chester le Street. Confused the hell out of me as a kid!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

That's exactly what causes the different behaviour with H in English - whether it's pronounced or not.

e.g.

A horse
An honour
A heritage railway
A hat

Yep, totally agree with that. It's 'an' if and only if the following word is pronounced with a vowel sound at the start (irrespective of how it is spelt).

Some archaic guides will say "an hotel" is correct, in modern usage it's an anachronism.

I seem to recall there was a period about 10 or 15 years ago (I forget exactly when) when various newspapers started putting 'an' in front of any word beginning with 'h'. I'm not sure why they did it - maybe some attempt to be really 'proper' (read: pretentious ) At any rate I found it incredibly annoying to read because things like 'an hotel' just sounded wrong to my ears. Thankfully, they seem to have stopped doing that.

 

[hexagon789]

Everyone pronounces it Chester Lee Street same as Houghton Lee Spring. I should know. Houghton is where most of my family live. My gran who lived there all her life pronounced it Lee not Le. That will do for me.

My Grandad used to say he was off to Chester when he was off to Chester le Street. Confused the hell out of me as a kid!

Right, well I've only ever heard Chester le Street rather than lee street, so that's why I assumed the former waa standard.

 

[DarloRich]

Right, well I've only ever heard Chester le Street rather than lee street, so that's why I assumed the former waa standard.

off comers cant speak proper like

 

[hexagon789]

off comers cant speak proper like

Yes, well I am from Glasgow...

 

[whhistle]

I always took the idea that:
"a" precedes a consonant, as in "It's a chocolate bar"
"an" precedes a vowel, as in "It's an apple"

That's basically right but as ever in English, there are exceptions.

A good one is the word LED (as in light bulbs).

Using the above rule, you'd say "a LED" but that doesn't sound right. "An LED" is much better.
So it seems to depend on the shape you're making with your mouth/tongue with the word after the "a" or "an", which is strange because you then have to pre-empt the word.

 

[whhistle]

I pronounce ""Edinburgh", "Edinburah" (note the "u" between the "b" and the "r")

This is a good one as some people seem to say the end part of Edinburgh like "borough".
But it isn't spelt that way. Can't remember if it's the only one?
All others (like Peterborough) are "boroughs". Although there are exceptions (like Middlesbrough, which misses an O).

I say it like the beginning part of "rough" (IE, take the F off of rough and you have the last part of Edinburgh!).

 

[whhistle]

"th" is such a magical pair of letters...

This ticks me off!

People who can pronounce TH but can't be bothered. Hence you get "free" meaning "THree".
Try saying "three free things" pronouncing F's instead of TH's.
How does some one determine whether they're saying three or free?

 

[edwin_m]

Reminds me of being on a train with my uncle and cousin many years ago.

Uncle to ticket collector, pointing to cousin: "He's free"
Cousin (indignantly): I'm four!

 

[Giugiaro]

Well, I've heard non English speaking people saying "things" as "sings", "fings" and "dings".
Can't understand why "s" and "f", as the closest the tongue is to the "th" position is in "d", which is with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth.
"s" and "f" use the lips instead.

 

[takno]

Well, I've heard non English speaking people saying "things" as "sings", "fings" and "dings".
Can't understand why "s" and "f", as the closest the tongue is to the "th" position is in "d", which is with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth.
"s" and "f" use the lips instead.

I never learned to say th as a kid. That and trilled Rs I'm finally starting to pick up as an adult through learning other languages, but basically I've got a big clumsy tongue and come from an area where there were no prizes for clarity of speech

 

[hexagon789]

Well, I've heard non English speaking people saying "things" as "sings", "fings" and "dings".
Can't understand why "s" and "f", as the closest the tongue is to the "th" position is in "d", which is with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth.
"s" and "f" use the lips instead.

Th-fronting is a traditional feature of many British English dialects - pronouncing 'th' as 'f' or 'v'. Indeed it has spread to many dialects where it was never a usual feature.

 

[Strat-tastic]

Best not to try Strathaven then

Sounds like a wonderful place

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Well, I've heard non English speaking people saying "things" as "sings", "fings" and "dings".
Can't understand why "s" and "f", as the closest the tongue is to the "th" position is in "d", which is with the tip of the tongue against the upper front teeth.
"s" and "f" use the lips instead.

I imagine it'll be because of the sounds: Most people will tend to learn how to pronounce foreign languages primarily by imitating the sounds they hear, and only secondarily by thinking about the mouth and tongue positions. Consider also that 'f', 's' and the soft 'th' (in things) are all unvoiced fricative sounds - so they are extremely similar in the way they are produced, whereas 'd' is a voiced plosive sound - tongue position may be close but the way you actually make the sound is completely different.

To my English ears, 'f' sounds quite similar to a soft 'th'. For some time as a child I couldn't pronounce 'th' properly, and I imitated it with an 'f' for that reason. That's probably exactly what's going on with people saying 'things' as 'fings'.

 

[SteveP29]

somewhere spelled with 'lea' as part of the word.

Which again, in the North East means field (not sure if that's common all over the UK)

My Grandad used to say he was off to Chester when he was off to Chester le Street. Confused the hell out of me as a kid!

Nobody in Chester calls it by its full name, we all say 'are we going down Chester for a few pints tonight?' or more commonly, 'are we going down the Street tonight?', which also gets changed to 'the strasse', sounds dead exotic.

BTW, the lee pronunciation probably stems from the fact that Houghton is in Sunderland and their dialect is a bit different

 

[DarloRich]

BTW, the lee pronunciation probably stems from the fact that Houghton is in Sunderland and their dialect is a bit different

Agreed. That might be too difficult for southerners to understand the amount of times oi have been called a geordie!

 

[hexagon789]

Which again, in the North East means field (not sure if that's common all over the UK

I can't think of many places up here with 'lea' in them as such, but certainly I've come across the word before.

Summerlee near Livingston might fit.

 

[krus_aragon]

I can't think of many places up here with 'lea' in them as such, but certainly I've come across the word before.

I'm not surprised, as it's an Old English (or Germanic) term. Glasgow's a bit far north for that.

I'm also hard-pressed to think of any lea/lee placenames in Wales. English didn't have much of an influence on placenames here until after the Norman Conquest (by which point we're well into Middle English). Maybe the word lea had fallen out of fashion by then.

 

[172006]

I never learned to say th as a kid.

I learned to say 'th' as in 'thing' at age 15.

 

[CarltonA]

All others (like Middlesborough) are "boroughs".

Err, no they are not. Middlesbrough is the correct spelling.

 

[hexagon789]

This is a good one as some people seem to say the end part of Edinburgh like "borough".
But it isn't spelt that way. Can't remember if it's the only one?

Fraserburgh, Musselburgh. All "burgh" because that's the usual Scottish spelling of borough. All are, including Edinburgh, correctly produced with the "burgh" on the end fully sounded as buh-ruh as in the full word burgh or borough. Places on England with borough on the end always seem to be elided to 'bruh' - Peter-bruh.

Personally I use both Peter-bruh/Peter-buh-ruh but Scottish ones I always say buh-ruh.

 

[Neo9320]

A strange one is: a hotel, where the 'H' is vocalised yet it is still common to hear an hotel (pronounced as 'anotell') This is because the word is imported from french where the leading 'H' is silent.

Was thinking this myself......in a very old monopoly board game set I have, the rules actually state “an hotel” I quizzed an English teacher on this once and he replied it was perfectly acceptable........no wonder I failed my English exam......

 

[AlterEgo]

Err, no they are not. Middlesbrough is the correct spelling.

And Brough of course!