XPost: uk.d-i-y, alt.home.repair, alt.sci.physics   
   From: me@privacy.invalid   
      
   "Mark Lloyd"  wrote in message   
   news:Rx5mF.17840$JD1.8167@fx11.iad...   
   > On 10/4/19 2:51 PM, Commander Kinsey wrote:   
      
   >>> I have a LED   
   >>   
   >> That irritates me, why don't you write "an LED"?  How do you say "LED"?   
   >> I say "Ell Eee Dee", not "Light Emitting Diode".  So it needs an "an",   
   >> not an "a".   
   >   
   > "an LED" irritates me. I know the word is "light".   
      
   I think it is normal convention that an initialism that starts with a *vowel   
   sound* takes "an", on the grounds of euphony: that in normal English, you   
   never precede a word that starts with a vowel sound with "a".   
      
   Hence an apple, but a uniform. A hedge or a hotel or a historic event but an   
   honourable occasion (H is sounded for the first three but silent for the   
   last one). For some reason, it considered "better" to use "an" before hotel   
   and historic, even though the H is sounded. That sounds as daft to my ears   
   as "an spoon" - it's not a vowel sound so you use "a". I could understand if   
   people pronounce hotel the French way, but it needs to be consistent: "an   
   'otel" or "a hotel".   
      
      
   As regards initialisms/abbreviations, you do get anomalies like "an LED"   
   (ell-ee-dee) that starts with a consonant but "a UFO" (you-eff-oh) that   
   starts with a vowel pronounced as a consonant.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)