[OT] English++

Bart Cerneels bart.cerneels at kde.org
Tue Nov 17 09:04:44 CET 2009


On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 02:03, Alex Merry <kde at randomguy3.me.uk> wrote:
> On Sunday 15 November 2009 22:25:04 Thomas Lübking wrote:
>> Am Sunday 15 November 2009 schrieb Jeff Mitchell:
>> > Actually, you're both half right. The correct sentence is:
>> >
>> > "An HTML page was received. Expected a RSS 2.0 feed."
>>
>> /me is confused - it's Arr-Ess-Ess rather than Riss, isn't?
>> or /A/ ("Eyy") Arr-Ess-Ess to stress the RSS need?
>
> RSS should definitely be preceded by "an", since you would read RSS as three
> letters, not as "Really Simple Syndication" (or something like "Riss").  I've
> not heard an accent that would lead to you being able to say "a R" without
> either a glottal stop or a merging of the two syllables.
>
> HTML the only debatable one, since it is possible to pronounce it as haitch
> tee em ell.  But the generally accepted "proper" way to pronounce the letter H
> is "aitch", in which case it should be preceded with "an".
>
> "Google votes" don't mean anything, btw - as Jeff said, popular does not
> necessarily mean correct, even with language.  This holds even for Harvard web
> sites.  When writing, people often don't think about sounds, so will write "a
> RSS" because RSS obviously starts with a consonant, right?
>
> /end rant by a language nut
>
> Alex
>

The "glottal stop" rule is what I naturally would do, so not bothering
with consonants anymore.

Thanks for the English lessons guys. I'll be happy to give you some
Dutch lessons in return if you wish :).

Bart


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