Re: [Caml-list] "a 'a list" or "an 'a list"

[David Brown <caml-list@davidb.org>]

On Sat, Aug 07, 2004 at 03:46:56PM -0700, don groves wrote:

> >>From one of the many pendants-R-us discussion forums I'm on, this question
> >came up: which is grammatically correct: "a 'a list", or "an 'a list",
> >when discussing Ocaml types in english?  Is there a standard (de-facto or
> >de-jure) or just whatever sounds right to the ear of the writter?

Assuming the reader pronounces the 'a as alpha, it would be "an 'a list".
One could also say "a tick-a list" but that would be weird.

> It is "an" whenever the following word begins with a vowel or vowel sound
> (such as 'an historical event')

Funny that you chose an exception to the rule.  Welcome to English.
"historical" uses an, even though most people pronounce the 'h' as a
constant.  Normally, we would say "a hundred".

Dave

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