Dear Hillary,
I agree with you that ‘an’ should come before a noun beginning with any of the vowels. In English, where a word begins with the letter “H”, this consonant must always be pronounced, although English people never do. So it is not an ‘orse, an ‘otel, an ‘ouse. It is a horse, a hotel, a house. The only European language to drop the “H” is French.
As to Robert’s comments on British accents, having worked on drilling rigs around the world for 25 years and known Americans from “Loozana Coonass”, Louisiana Cajun up through all of the Redneck states to the big city of “Noo Yoik”, New York, I have liked and understood them and they me.
The British Empire was guilty of many massacres, and for this I am ashamed, but the British people never took part in state sponsored genocide as did the Americans against their own native tribes.
I am an articulate, multilingual Scotsman looking forward to independence from the remnants of the Empire.
Don
Dear Don,
What have I started? What have I done, Don? How do I gotten off this runaway ‘orse? We’ve even got ‘ercule Poirot waiting in the wings as well. I have heard the statement that Britain and the USA are “separated by a common language” even if just in the pronunciation of tomato or tomayto, and we’ll not get (gotten) into the argument over elevators and lifts.
Anyway, let’s get into something easy like jilted boyfriends and walking ATMs. I’m better equipped for those!
