Speaking of things I’ve never gotten over, when I was in elementary school, and we were learning the difference between ‘a’ and ‘an’ and when to use them, the teacher said ‘a’ was for before words that started with consonants and ‘an’ was before words that started with vowels.
So, I asked the teacher if we should go based on the letter, or the sound the letter makes, and when she asked what I meant, I said, “Like with acronyms and initialisms. Is it a FBI agent or an FBI agent? Or words like ‘hour’. Is it a hour because h is a consonant, or an hour because it makes an o sound?”
And not only did she never answer my honest question, she also accused me of pretending I didn’t understand the lesson just so I could show off that I knew the words “acronym” and “initialism” and didn’t let me to to recess for being a “disruptive show-off”.
Anyways, she works at the grocery store now and she’s always mean to me.
This makes me so mad. If kids are asking hard questions it’s because they are thinking critically and paying attention! I’m glad this person isn’t a teacher anymore they sucked
Ok, but what’s the answer
APA Style Guide dictates using the phonetic response. Trust your ears/the pronunciation, not your eyes/the spelling.
“An FBI agent” | Eff-bee-eye
“A AAA player” | Triple ay
“An HIV patient” vs “A HIPAA violation”
And screw that former teacher.
Also sending a cordial fuck you to everyone who writes “an history”.
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theclumsiestninja 