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I know the a/an rule, but as I meet both in my readings, I tried to google it, and I find both, with not site or dictionaries telling us we should use the one or the other one.

My question is: are they both common and accepted? Are they exceptions?

Quidam
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    I don't know where you have found 'a undershirt', but it's incorrect. Words beginning with a vowel take 'an'. – Kate Bunting Jan 12 '20 at 17:43
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    For all practical purposes, the *only* thing that affects the *a / an* choice is whether the word starts with a vowel sound** (it's irrelevant whether the written form starts with a "vowel" or "consonant" *letter*). – FumbleFingers Jan 12 '20 at 17:45
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    Related: “An hour” or “a hour” – Em. Jan 13 '20 at 02:42
  • @FumbleFingersReinstateMonica I know the a/an rule , but I'm not an English speaker, so it's hard to assess the sound it makes. – Quidam Jan 13 '20 at 08:08
  • If you don't know how an English word is pronounced, you can find this in almost any dictionary. As you may know, for centuries, archaeologists / scholars were unable to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs - because they thought each glyph had inherent meaning. They only finally cracked the code when it dawned on someone that each glyph represented a sound, not a concept. That's my way of pointing out that real language is spoken** - so if you really want to learn English you should pay more attention to how it's spoken than to how it's written. – FumbleFingers Jan 13 '20 at 13:31
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    I don't speak (is that the right word?) any sign languages, but does your "real language is spoken" still work for them? – Richard Ward Jan 13 '20 at 13:47
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    @RichardWard For sign language it would be "real language is signed(?)" as opposed to written, and the point still holds: reading signs probably isn't a good way to learn sign language. – user253751 Jan 13 '20 at 15:52
  • @KateBunting - 'unicorn' begins with a vowel! Come on. Could that be *an* useless comment? – Tim Jan 14 '20 at 13:07
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    @Tim Well, all right, words beginning with a vowel sound, as Fumblefingers says! – Kate Bunting Jan 14 '20 at 13:17
  • @KateBunting - still not exactly correct! A E, O and I have two sound choices at the beginnings of words. All are preceded by 'an'. U is odd... Correct me if I'm wrong - please. – Tim Jan 14 '20 at 13:27
  • @Tim We all learned 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' and sometimes 'y'. The sometimes 'y' is because 'y' can be a vowel e.g. as in 'sky' or a consonant e.g. as in 'yellow'. Really, we should probably learn 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', usually 'u', and sometimes 'y'. 'u' can act as a the consonant-vowel combo 'you' as in 'unicorn' (younicorn), user (youser) or 'populate' (popyoulate). – JimmyJames Jan 14 '20 at 16:29
  • @JimmyJames - I'm trying to understand the relevance of your comment. – Tim Jan 14 '20 at 16:52
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    @Tim "U is odd... Correct me if I'm wrong - please." looks like a request for clarification to me. – JimmyJames Jan 14 '20 at 17:07
  • @JimmyJames - maybe, but where does Y come in? We never use 'an' before a word beginning with Y. – Tim Jan 14 '20 at 17:23
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    @Tim Exactly. Well, almost. – JimmyJames Jan 14 '20 at 17:35
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    @Tim: an Ypres woman left an hour ago. – kthy Jan 15 '20 at 14:26

2 Answers2

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My favorite example is

An uninformed man
A uniformed man (a you-knee-formed man).

You use an if the next word sounds like it starts with a vowel, a if the next word sounds like it starts with a consonant.

There are cases where there is no universal agreement about pronunciation. Some people say "a hotel" (a hoe-tell), some say "an hotel" (an oh-tell).

When abbreviations are written down, some people will read them aloud as the letters in the abbreviation, and some will read them aloud as words. NDA is read as "en-dee-aye" or "non-disclosure agreement"; you use an or a depending on how you read it.

Martha
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gnasher729
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38

The correct article to use is an undershirt

enter image description here

Google Ngram confirms

The American English term, undershirt, begins with a vowel sound
/ʌndərʃɜrt/ (Collins) and /ˈʌndəʃəːt/ (Lexico), and words beginning with a vowel sound take "an".

Mari-Lou A
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    The pronunciation you have given at the end appears to be a British English pronunciation, not American English. – Eric Wofsey Jan 13 '20 at 05:03
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    @EricWofsey https://www.lexico.com/definition/undershirt but some American speakers pronounce the letter r, aka as rhotic /r/ in "under" https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/undershirt. This has no influencer over the indefinite article. – Mari-Lou A Jan 13 '20 at 09:42
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    Some American dialects are non-rhotic but the "standard" and most common American prounciation is rhotic. Your first dictionary appears to exclusively display RP pronunciations and thus is not a source of information about American English pronunciation. Of course you are right that this is irrelevant to the indefinite article, I just worry that some learners may get confused by your last sentence and think that you are giving the standard American English pronunciation. – Eric Wofsey Jan 13 '20 at 14:07
  • @EricWofsey that's interesting. I live in the Southern US, and do actually pronounce it "*unduhshirt". – RonJohn Jan 14 '20 at 03:26
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    @RonJohn yeah, but unless you're secretly from Boston, you probably pronounce the "ir" part of the word with an actual "r" sound, and not just with the vowel in "eugh" on its own, as in non-rhotic dialects... – Muzer Jan 14 '20 at 10:47
  • @Muzer well, I sure don't say "pahk the cah" or go to Hahvd. It's very subtle. – RonJohn Jan 14 '20 at 14:04
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    @Muzer I noticed during a press conference about the Boston Marathon bomb incident that Bostonians save up the "r"s they remove from those words and add some of them to words like "law" in "law enforcement" (lawr enfahcement?), sort of like how Brits might refer to "Americer". There must be some kind of Conservation of R Law(r) at work here. – Monty Harder Jan 14 '20 at 23:30
  • @MontyHarder yes, it's called "intrusive r". Basically because in non-rhotic dialects, words like "car" don't have an "r" pronounced unless another vowel follows ("car engine"), but also because pronounciation rules based entirely on spelling are hard to memorise, the pronunciation rule for many dialects shifted from "pronounce the r in vowel + r + vowel" to "pronounce an r between (certain vowel sounds typically followed by r in spelling) + vowel". Because "law" sounds the same as "lore" in many non-rhotic dialects (mine at least) the rule applies to this vowel. – Muzer Jan 15 '20 at 09:58
  • @MontyHarder - It's so we don't have jarring glottal stops. "Law [glottal stop] enforcement" sounds horrible. "Lawrenforcement" allows the sentence to flow. – Chris Melville Jan 15 '20 at 16:31