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Subject:Re: Articles with Initialisms From:Sue Gallagher <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 23 Feb 1996 11:34:55 -0800
At 10:24 PM 2/22/96 -0800, Daniel E. Wise wrote:
>Folks, the article before an initialism such as SME should match the
>"sound" of the first pronounced letter. As I am sure all of us know, a
>vowel sound calls for the article "an." Thus we should write AN SME
>(ess begins with a vowel sound) and AN ESLer (ee begins with a vowel
>sound).
Ahh... Yeah... Except if you expect the user to *pronounce*
it -- i.e., it's an acronym instead of an initialism --
"smee" -- then it would be "a smee".
The problem is, there's no standard for what's an initialism
and what's an acronym -- and until there is, it's best guess.
-Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com
