Fw: [ADS-L] Can a have an A, men?

[Jocelyn Limpert]

I think that in the case of our current president something else was taking
place -- that is, not that he was mispronouncing "an" as "a."

His using "a" with "educational" and other words beginning with a vowel
would happen when he said "a" and followed it with a pause, seemingly
thinking about what he was going to say next. Then, something would follow
that started with a vowel sound, but only after the pause.

If he was not pausing, he would say "an," as in "an educational."

The "problem," as I clearly heard it, was always related to the pause,
something that people often do, shifting their speech after a pause from one
thought to another -- as in following a singular verb and a pause with a
plural direct object.

I think the pause in the president's speech is the important element, as he
usually would say either "a [pause] educational" or "an educational."


On 2/4/09, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Fw: [ADS-L] Can a have an A, men?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12:16 AM +0000 2/5/09, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
> >Schools try to teach students to WRITE "an" under certain
> >circumstances. I don't believe that the pronunciation is generally
> >taught. It is too inconsequential. Indeed, it is obvious from this
> >thread that people go through many years of their lives and don't
> >even notice it until something draws their attention to it (perhaps
> >a desire to feel superior to the speaker). I was a professor of
> >English at Duke before I even realized that this was a feature of my
> >own speech
>
> Yeah, they taught us to use different spellings for "Mary", "merry",
> and "marry" too, but did that stop all those iggerunt non-New Yorkers
> from neglecting the crucial distinction and merging the three?  Hah!
> (And think of all those airplanes that have crashed because of the
> "Mary"-dropping.)
>
> LH
>
>
>
> >
> >By the way, this has all been discussed here before.
> >
> >------Original Message------
> >From: Dan Goodman
> >Sender: ADS-L
> >To: ADS-L
> >ReplyTo: dsgood at iphouse.com
> >Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Can a have an A, men?
> >Sent: Feb 4, 2009 6:28 PM
> >
> >Jocelyn Limpert wrote:
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>-----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Jocelyn Limpert <jocelyn.limpert at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  Subject:      Re: Can a have an A, men?
> >>
>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  I'm glad the "a/an" problem that our new president has was finally
> mentioned
> >>  on this site. And, yes, it is like nails on a blackboard. I thought
> everyone
> >>  (yes, everyone) learned the distinction early on in grammar school.
> >
> >Just because everyone is _taught_ it in grammar school doesn't mean
> >everyone _learns_ it.  And of those who learn it, many would retain the
> >knowledge only as long as it was needed for school.
> >
> >There are adults who don't understand the distinction between nonfiction
> >and fiction, don't understand the laws of probability, etc. -- but who
> >were taught these things.
> >
> >Note:  I would say "grade school" or "elementary school" rather than
> >grade school.
> >
> >--
> >Dan Goodman
> >"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
> >Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
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