A few days ago, my bff and I were sitting in her car and waiting for her boyfriend to get out of work. The two of us had just been to lunch and she had brought him a dessert from the restaurant. Unfortunately, the dessert had a scoop of ice cream on it, and it was melting fast*. I was especially worried about the state of the dessert, so I told her to text him to bring a spoon (he works in a spoon factory).
Well, for whatever reason, she decided to use the word utensil instead of spoon. While typing into her phone she realized something that shook our world a little. Grammatically speaking, it's not AN utensil, it's A utensil.
But why? Aren't you suppose to use the word AN before words that start with vowels (nouns in the singular form)? Is there some sort of rule our English teachers forgot to mention? It also doesn't work with Unicorn. Is it just the U sound? Why isn't there some sort of rhyme to help us remember?
If you or someone you know can answer these questions, please, PLEASE do. Thank you.
* The ice cream was on top of a giant warm cookie. We had asked for the dessert to go, but our server brought it out to us . . . um . . . not to go. When we told him it was suppose to be to go, he brought us one container. I, personally, was expecting our server to package it for us, but the fact that he didn't even bring a separate container for the ice cream was extremely irritating.
6 comments:
And what about words starting with H?
I have always thought that "an historical event" was correct and "a historical event" was for hill people...
It has to do with the initial sound. Utensil starts with a hard "Yuh" sound, and historical starts with a hard "hih" sound, so they get "a." Umbrella and honor get "an" because the initial sound is soft.
This blog is so educational...
yes, anon #2 is correct. it pains me so whenever tv people say "AN historical event." they make all journalists look bad.
What they said...
But what I find most interesting about this post is the staggering convenience and coincidence of knowing someone about to come out of a spoon factory just when you need a spoon.
P.S. Regarding "historical event"... It seems to me that only people with a British accent are allowed to say "an historical event", because they tend to not really pronounce the H sound.
interesting.
This blog is educational!
Cofo - knowing someone who works at a Spoon Factory does have its benefits. I just wish they manufactured forks and knives as well.
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