=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 7, no. 32 (5 February 2002) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2rv] An European =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2]-- Q & A -------------------------------------------------- ** [2rv] An European Date: Thurs, 24 Jan 2002 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com One of the references in a book I'm working on included the words "An European review ..." in its title. I assumed it was an error, and changed it to "A European", but a later chapter cited the same reference with the same phrase. This time, I looked it up on Ingenta's database, and discovered that it is actually correct (unless Ingenta's also got it wrong, of course!). I've never seen this usage before, and was curious about its origin. ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 24 Jan 2002 From: Alex Gray, wordworks@gairloch.co.uk Personally I think Ingenta has got it wrong. I suspect the mistake comes from an over-extrapolation of the practice with words beginning with u. The general rule, of course, is that nouns beginning with a vowel take 'an' rather than 'a' as the indefinite article. This is clearly for reasons of ease of speech, but it seems to be normal usage even when a u is pronounced as if preceded by a y, as in 'an unique event'. It seems as if the n has been added in this case because, even though the word actually begins eu it is pronounced as it might be if it began with just a u. I think that is someone being too clever by half, and I don't believe it is accepted usage. In any event, the word is not pronounced with an open u sound 'ooropean', where the 'an' could be argued for - it is pronounced as if 'yooropean', and clearly doesn't call for 'an' in any case. So, as I said, I think Ingenta is plainly wrong (and sorry to those who believe there is no such thing as wrong!). A closely related topic is that of the placing of 'an' before an h at the start of some words such as honour where the h is pretty well mute or just vaguely aspirated. It is even used (some would say, affected) in some circles before words that start with a clearly sounded h for most people, but not in some received pronunciations, such as hotel and history. ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 24 Jan 2002 From: Johan Segerback, johan.segerback@usa.net I would say it is still wrong, regardless of whether you find it in Ingenta. Or does it actually explicitly say that this is correct? I mean, the reference title may well be the way it is quoted and so be correct, but the usage would still be wrong. Presumably, this is a misunderstanding of the rules governing the use of "an". The indefinite article is "an" before a word starting with a vowel _sound_, not a vowel _letter_. "European" starts with a [y] sound, and so the article should be "a". There are indeed a few cases of words starting with an "h" _letter_, such as "hotel" and "historical", before which some people write "a" and others "an" depending on whether they pronounce an "h" at the beginning of those words or not: "a historical novel" / "an historical novel" -- or perhaps depending on whether their spelling habits have been influenced by people with a certain pronunciation. This variation is accepted, I would say. But I have never heard a native speaker of English pronounce "European" with a vowel _sound_ at the beginning. Those writing "an European" might be non-natives and therefore unduly influenced by the spelling -- or could it in some cases be over-compensation by native speakers who never say "an" nor pronounce "the" differently in "the beginning" and "the end" ["thee end"], and who have been taught at school to write "an" in certain cases without fully understanding which those cases are? I don't know how common that pronunciation is, but at least I have Bruce Springsteen on record saying that either of his parents wanted him to be "a author" and that "This Land is Your Land" was written as "the [not "thee"] answer" to "God Bless America". ------------------------ Date: Thurs, 24 Jan 2002 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@rogers.com Jane Kerr wrote: > One of the references in a book I'm working on included the > words "An European review ..." in its title. I assumed it was > an error ... It can be justified on the grounds that "European" starts with a "Y" in the writer's pronunciation. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 From: John Marsden, j.marsden@tiscali.co.uk Is it possible that this could have been written by a native French speaker? The French pronounce Europe in a quite different way to the English -- 'Oorop'. They might therefore, given that it sounds to *them* as if it starts with a vowel sound, assume that 'an' would be the appropriate article to place before 'Ooropean'. Since the introduction of the Single European Currency (yeah, right...) 'Ooro' is also doing the rounds. Just a thought.... John Marsden (not a native French speaker, but someone who has worked with enough of them to notice!) ---------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@ntlworld.com It may well have been written by someone who is not a native speaker of English, but what I find surprising is that it apparently got past the peer reviewer, copy-editor, proofreader etc., and appeared in print, which makes me think that someone's house style permits "an European". The journal it was published in is an English-language journal. ---------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 From: Douglas Meekison, dmeekison@aspects.net I don't find it at all surprising that it got past the peer reviewer. I have copy-edited a fair number of manuscripts for scientific journals and have been amazed and appalled at what the reviewers/referees have allowed through. I'm not talking about details such as a/an, but papers that were so badly written that no reader (except perhaps a colleague of the authors) could have got more than a vague idea of what the authors had done! ---------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 From: Alex Gray, wordworks@gairloch.co.uk David Ibbetson wrote: > It can be justified on the grounds that "European" starts with > a "Y" in the writer's pronunciation. How would that justify it? We don't say 'an young man' or 'an yacht' - why would we say 'an yooropean''. It would only be defendible (but very tenuously) if pronounced as if it started with 'oor' or 'oier' (rather like the 'eu' pronounced in German in the word Deutsches). ---------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@rogers.com My mind was wandering. I meant to say it would be correct if the writer didn't pronounce the "y". I believe that the pronunciation "Ooropean" is found in parts of the USA. ---------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au Johan Segerback wrote: > I have Bruce Springsteen on record saying that either of his > parents wanted him to be "a author" and that "This Land is Your > Land" was written as "the [not "thee"] answer" to "God Bless > America". Interesting you should note this Johan, Here in Australia, our "yoof" have adopted a speech habit I think they may have picked up from such venerable users of the language as Puff Daddy or Snoop Doggy Dog. My daughters and many of their associates insert a glottal stop between "the" and many words beginnning with a vowel. Even younger radio newsreaders and "journalists" use pronunciations such as "tha airport" or "tha afternoon". Interestingly, I first noticed this trend a few years ago when I was still an English teacher - some of the students began using "tha" in place of "the" in their written work, indicating that the only reading they were doing was from the lyrics printed on the covers of CDs. Interestingly, they hadn't, at that time, adopted it in their speech, but it seems things have progressed!! ---------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 From: Mark Hendy, markhendy1@compuserve.com The glottal stop has been employed at the end of a "the" before a vowel for quite a long time by actors and in comic strips to characterise the speech of persons hailing from south of the Mason-Dixon line. I'm pretty sure there are some instances in the cod gambling scene in the Danny Kaye film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I think in comics it's spelt "thuh"; I seem to remember that Al Capp, the comic-strip chronicler of Li'l Abner, his family and the village of Dogpatch, always used it to indicate total hickdom. Perhaps even Clinton (from Arkansas) and Dubya (from Texas) once spoke thus, before they became national politicians and so had to start pronouncing the definite article as "theee" (and the indefinite as "ayeee" or "annn"). Dolly Parton's speech of course makes no more concession to Yankeedom than her face does to anno domini... ---------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 From: Eddie Kent, edlineek@aol.com A footnote. Some years ago Robert Robinson, a journalist, was chairing a radio discussion on English and its usage. He told how he once tried to correct an elderly and very distinguished English don, to be told 'Your job is to report people like me, not to criticise.' ---------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 From: David Ibbetson, isserlis@rogers.com I remember my grandfather, who was born in the early 1880s in Kiev, saying that dictionaries reported what he said. He was not a don, he was a statistician. It's a good rule to work to. ---------------------- Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 From: Anna Beth McCormack, mccormack@goulburn.net.au Alex Gray said: > A closely related topic is that of the placing of 'an' before > an h at the start of some words such as honour where the h is > pretty well mute or just vaguely aspirated. It is even used > (some would say, affected) in some circles before words that > start with a clearly sounded h for most people, but not in some > received pronunciations, such as hotel and history. I've taken a guiding rule to be: use 'an' if the stress is on the second syllable (because the aspiration is faint) but 'a' if it's on the first (because the aspiration is stronger). This does give variations, as some people say 'hoTEL' and others say ''HOtel'. It also gives oddities, like 'a HIStory / an hisTORical ...' and 'an hyPERbole / a HYperbolic ...'. But I find some teacher-authors dig their heels in and want 'a' regardless. Maybe they just want to emphasise that the words aren't 'istory' and 'yperbole'. ---------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au Mark Hendy wrote: > The glottal stop has been employed at the end of a "the" before > a vowel for quite a long time by actors and in comic strips to > characterise the speech of persons hailing from south of the > Mason-Dixon line. I'm pretty Yes Mark, I know many groups of "native" speakers use the glottal stop in a range of ways depending on their local pronunciation patterns. My point really was that in this country a NEW speech habit has emerged that began as a mannerism (or maybe an affectation) marking certain teenage groups (perhaps NESB kids) and has now spread to larger, or at least, influential sections of the community (newsreaders and radio/TV journalists). Previously, EVERYBODY used "thee afternoon" or even "the yafternoon". I recall Barry Humphries (satirist) has one of his characters describe himself as "Sir Les Patterson, Minister for the Yarts" (the Arts). ---------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 From: Mark Hendy, markhendy1@compuserve.com Sorry to seem vague, distant and/or patronising; a chunk got left off at the end. I hope sending it now doesn't make things worse: In Britain vernacular speech using the glottal stop extends as far as Scotland, though there it is "theh" rather than "thuh". From here, in the UK, such ubiquity could suggest that what you have in Oz could qualify more as a revival, even a restoration ... perhaps assisted by Eurekan atavism? I suppose the last was a bit fanciful (but I was weaned on Chips Rafferty) ... And the stop must suit republicans - you can't imagine HM using it. Though come to think of it, the stifled vowels of thuh heir app. might accomodate it. ;-) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 7.32 Admin page: < http://www.electriceditors.net/edline/admin.htm > ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 2001, 2002, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996--2002 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2002, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=