It's the sound that's important rather than strictly using a vowel as
the determinant. This is a pair of related extracts from the Wiki page
regarding a and an.
"The choice of "a" or "an" is determined by phonetic rules rather than
by spelling convention. "An" is employed in speech to remove the awkward
glottal stop (momentary silent pause) that is otherwise required between
"a" and a following word."
"Further, some words starting with vowels may have a preceding a because
they are pronounced as if beginning with an initial consonant. "Ewe" and
"user" have a preceding a because they are pronounced with an initial y
consonant sound. "One-armed bandit" also has a preceding a because it is
pronounced with an initial w consonant sound."
Chuck Norcutt
Wayne Harridge wrote:
> I just read this:
>
> "...the parking lot, is an unique observation tower with..."
>
> I'm wondering if "an unique" is correct, doesn't sound right to me, "an
> excellent" works, but "a unique" seems correct.
>
> I always thought the rule was "an" before a word starting with a vowel, but
> what about "an unique" ?
>
> ...Wayne
>
> Wayne Harridge
> http://lrh.structuregraphs.com/
>
>
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