Can a have an A, men?

[Jocelyn Limpert]

With regard to Arnold's comment -- which I realize was much better worded
than mine, by the way, and for that I thank him -- once I was aware of the
use of "a" and "an" by our president, I listened very carefully. And in
virtually all instances, he used the "a" for "an" only after a pause. Also,
he does use "an" with an "n" sound appropriately at other times.

On 2/5/09, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Can a have an A, men?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Feb 5, 2009, at 6:41 AM, Michael Covarrubias wrote:
>
> >
> > ... the singular verb/ plural direct object is just a poorly
> > conceived and
> > chosen example.
> >
> > but i think the quotes around "problem" are telling. as i understand
> > the comment, jocelyn is focusing on the possibility that obama's 'a'
> > before a vowel comes from a planning error rather than from a
> > grammatical feature of his dialect in which 'a' precedes both initial
> > V and initial C .
> >
> > if it is a planning error then it's a "problem" only in the sense that
> > it doesn't represent the normal system of speech, and is in fact ...
> > an error.
>
> yes, i understood that.  a change of plan in mid-course is still
> another way to end up with "a" before a vowel-initial word.  we'd
> usually expect a pause in such cases, though.  so we'd need to hear
> the actual production.
>
> arnold
>
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