"a user" or "an user"?

Question

Hello folks,

While writing a document today morning; when I typed in "an user", MS Word showed me a grammatical error and changed it to "a user". I was baffled and shaken as I sucked at a very basic grammar rule.

Somebody please enlighten.

~Nilay.

vivesomnium · Answer

Use of a or an are not determined by spelling, but pronunciation. any word which sounds like it begins with a viwel (may or may not actually begin with a vowel) will take an. and any word whihc begins with sound of a consonant will take 'a' as preceding article.
E.g.
user,university both begin with sound of 'yu..' Hence, 'a' is the article used for them. 
hour begins with a consonant, but we always say 'an hour' why? because the first sound when the word hour is pronounced is 'aww.' sound of a vowel.

I hope this makes it clear.. you can consider many other examples.. 'a one-day match' is correct, not 'an one-day match', reason being while one begins with a vowel, the sound is that of a consonant - w.

nilaybadavne · Answer

Thanks! That clarified it. I was not aware of it.

thetiming · Answer

Letters are just and abstraction layer for sounds.

And letters do not always behave the same way (i.e. do not always result in the pronunciation of the same sound).
I find rules that depend on the actual sound (rather than the letters) much more logical.

"a user" or "an user"?

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