Grammar girl here, a couple of weeks ago, I talked about how words such as adder, apron

and umpire originally began with a letter n, which was lost when phrases such as a

natter, a napron, and a non-pair were rebracted as an adder and apron and an umpire.

I also talked about how nouns such as nickname and notch originally didn't begin with

the letter n, but gained one when phrases such as an eak name and an arch were rebracted

into a nickname and an arch.

All these changes were possible because the indefinite article has two forms, a and

an.

In addition to these common nouns, I talked about how some proper nouns such as nad and nell

were created when the affectionate phrases mine add and mine ln underwent a similar

rebracting.

If you go back a step, though, you start to wonder why we have these alternative forms

a and an, and my and mine that led to the rebractings.

And why do we still say, for example, an apple instead of a apple when we don't say

mine apple instead of my apple of the two forms of the indefinite article and is the

older one.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it comes from the old English word for one,

which was pronounced something like on.

However, when the word wasn't stressed, the a vowel was shortened so that on was pronounced

more or less as un, which is still as today.

Unlike today, though, n was used before words beginning with vowels and words beginning

with consonants.

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