The attack of the shapeshifting articles (now in HD)
So, I’ve posted in the past about the difficulty of choosing “a” versus “an”. Generally, it’s not very difficult to decide. You use “an” before a word beginning with a vowel sound (”an enemy”, “an alley”) and “a” if the next word starts with a consonant sound (”a university”, “a shark”). However, this time, I’m stumped.
I was making a post today about Apple’s iPhone on a forum, and wanted to express my wish that they might install a hard drive in it to raise the capacity. However, it’s a fairly computer literate forum, so I was using the abbreviation for Hard drive (”HD”). So, I ended up with this sentence:
I hope that they’ll offer a version of it with __ HD next year.
The reason I’ve left the blank there is because I was stumped as to which article to use. If I expanded it to “Hard Drive”, I would use “a”, because “Hard” starts with a consonant. However, “HD” starts with a spoken vowel when said aloud (”aitch dee”) (loosely transcribed as /eit∫ di/), which would require “an”.
So, as a spoken abbreviation, it’s obviously “an”, but if the reader substitutes the full word, it uses “a”. This could happen elsewhere (”a(n) SQL server”, “an FAA regulation”), but seldom are the acronym and the real word as interchangable.
I’m stumped. I ended up cheating (”a larger HD”), but I’m curious what you all would do in this situation, if given the option to pick one or the other. This is an F’ing frustrating question. Wait… would that be “a F’ing”? I give up. :p
January 11th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I think i would write an HD :) because while reading it, we pronounce the letters not Hard Drive, do we? :p But very nice post, hehe. I wonder what others think!
January 15th, 2007 at 6:55 am
[…] Will wrote about the difficulty of choosing “a” versus “an”. He gave the example of HD and asked himself what he would put in front of HD which is Hard Driver. An HD or a Hard Driver? I, personally, would write an HD since we read HD’s letters and since we don’t read it as Hard Driver if it is written HD. Just like HP case. If it is written HP in the next, i never read it as Hewlett-Packard. […]
January 15th, 2007 at 7:01 am
[…]Will wrote about the difficulty of choosing “a” versus “an”. He gave the example of HD and asked himself what he would put in front of HD which is Hard Driver. An HD or a Hard Driver? I, personally, would write an HD since we read HD’s letters and since we don’t read it as Hard Driver if it is written HD. Just like HP case. If it is written HP in the next, i never read it as Hewlett-Packard.[…]
January 22nd, 2007 at 11:32 am
My inclination would be to use the article that’s appropriate to the spoken form, even if that spoken form is different from the written form. And perhaps I’m an anomaly, but I frequently extrapolate out abbreviations when I read, particularly those that are used almost exclusively in written form. HD is one such abbreviation, in that in conversation I’d never say “get a new HD for that computer”; it would always be “get a new hard drive for that computer.”
All that being said, I would have reformulated the statement, much as you did. It’s not cheating at all, in my mind; context (spoken versus written) makes a huge difference. There are subtleties and challenges to be overcome in both situations.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:37 pm
[…] talked about the alternation between “a” and “an” before, and it’s a very cool phonological feature of English (a feature caused by rules governing […]
April 21st, 2007 at 9:36 pm
When I write, I generally pick the article based on how I believe most people will read the abbreviation. With HD(D), I think most people would read the letters. Although with SQL, I think most would say “SeQueL”.
Thus, I would put:
an HD(D)
a SQL server.