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Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

'A' versus 'an.' 'Larruping' rides again. Euonyms. Flavoring.

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Society & Culture, Education

4.52.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

967. Should you say "a honor" or "an honor"? It's trickier than you think! We explore why articles depend on sounds and regional variations, the difference between "thee" and "thuh," and your stories about delicious phrasings.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Grammar Girl here. I'm in yon Fog Fog, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about

0:05.8

writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. We're now live with Grammar Palusa, the new way you can get text messages from me and

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directly support my work. I'm sending fun language facts you want to share with your

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friends. Behind the scene peaks into how I make the show and a convenient link to the

0:23.7

podcast and transcript. So far subscribers have been happily surprised when they

0:29.2

realize they're really actually texting with me. The first two weeks are free and you can sign up at

0:35.7

join subtext.com slash grammar. That's join subtext.com slash grammar. It's in the show notes and I'll also put it in my email

0:44.4

newsletter and on my social media channels.

0:48.6

Hi grandma girl the other question I had is the use of A and Ann. A normally before a consonant, a capital, a state, a house, and then an, usually before a and opera and apple.

1:15.0

Now, when it comes to the consonant H, I'm inclined and it sounds better to my ear and I believe that I've seen it in writing.

1:30.4

But when I hear the word H as more of a vowel as in honor, which really the vowel sound would be

1:42.4

oh, in honor, sound would be oh and honor that would be the way I would pronounce it.

1:47.7

But a horror would seem to indicate the use of just the single A.

1:55.0

I would be curious as to your take on the use of A and and before the letter H depending on how it is pronounced in the word.

2:08.0

This question leads us to a great follow-up to last week's show about the letter H. A lot of people learned the rule that you put A before

2:16.7

words that start with consonants and an before words that start with vowels, but it's actually more complicated than that. The rule is that you use

2:26.0

A before words that start with a consonant sound, and an before words that start with a vowel sound.

2:34.0

The difference comes up a lot with the letter H,

2:36.3

just like in the caller's question.

2:38.6

An honor is correct, because even though honor starts with an H, which we think of as a consonant, the word honor starts

2:46.6

with a vowel sound. And a horror is correct because horror starts with an H sound. It comes up with other letters at the beginning of words too. Consider O and U.

2:59.9

Usually you put an before words that start with oh like an owl, but you use a

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