Seriously, this is one of the rare occasions where Received
Pronunciation and Cockney coincide.
By the way, has anyone seen that Hotel chain that's huge in France in
any other part of the world? Hotel de'Ville?
PaulH.
Rick Morrison wrote:
>
> No, Paul,
> We were discussing English - Not Cockney.
> If you're going to stay with these off topic thread, don't go changing
> to a foreign lanquage. ( 'otel indeed!)
> :>)
> Rick
>
> On Fri, 12 Dec 1997 20:04:26 +0000 Paul Hunt <paul.hunt1@virgin.net>
> writes:
> >... as in "an hotel". The 'h' is silent like 'p' in long grass.
> >
> >PaulH.
> >
> >doug russell wrote:
> >>
> >> Kai,
> >>
> >> The rule is if a word starts with a vowel then it is preceded by
> >'an' - if it
> >> starts with a consonant then it is preceded by and 'a'.
> >Technically, the
> >> issue is that MG is an acronym for Morris Garage and Morris does not
> >start
> >> with a vowel - thus you would use 'a' not 'an'. However, the
> >problem you are
> >> having (and you are not alone) is that the pronunciation of the
> >letter 'M' in
> >> 'MG' sounds like it starts with a vowel (the phonetic spelling of MG
> >is
> >> 'emmgee'). So while you might be tempted to use an 'an' (as in 'I
> >have an
> >> emmgee') it would be inappropriate because we do not phonetically
> >spell
> >> acronyms - they are spelled using the letters of the words they
> >represent
> >> ('MG' is spelled mg)!!! This is not uncommon and usually happens
> >with
> >> acronyms that start with the 'e' sounding consonants as in F which
> >is
> >> pronounced 'eff', M 'emm', N 'enn', S 'ess' and X 'ex'. In fact
> >most of us
> >> have probably found ourselves using an 'an' in front of MG in casual
> >> conversation - again, it's because 'M' sound like it starts with
> >vowel- in the
> >> future, when tempted to put an 'an' in front of a vowel sounding
> >acronym -
> >> spell it out the acronym's first word as in "I have a MorrisG car" -
> >it's
> >> correct, will sound right with some practice and will keep your
> >teacher from
> >> mooing all over the place!!!
> >>
> >> So much for those bilabial fricatives (or whatever they are called).
> >>
> >> BTW, I've very impressed that such an off topic topic can be so full
> >of MG
> >> content - Good Job Kai!!!
> >>
> >> Dr. Doug
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: owner-mgs@autox.team.net On Behalf Of Kai Radicke
> >> Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 1997 4:50 PM
> >> To: MG List
> >> Subject: MG/Grammar
> >>
> >> OK, I have a really stupid question...
> >>
> >> my English teacher was having a cow (or a Triumph) about me using
> >"an MG"
> >> in a sentence I wrote. I don't think I have ever seen "a MG" in my
> >life,
> >> it just sounds dumb. My teacher does have a point, but anyone know
> >why we
> >> do this?
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