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Orchid XP v8 a écrit :
> While we're on the subject of obscure grammatical edge-cases...
>
> According to the rules, a word beginning with a vowel should be prefixed
> with "an", otherwise it's just "a":
>
> A cat.
> An elephant.
>
> The idea - apparently - is that it's awkward to move from the sound of
> "a" to the sound of "e" without an intervining consonant.
>
> Now consider:
>
> A Europian.
>
> Technically, according to the rules, this should in fact be
>
> An Europian.
>
> which just sounds silly...
>
Well the sound at the beginning of "European" is arguably a consonant,
so the rule still works...
/ˌjʊəɹəˈpiːən/
It even has a name :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant
--
Vincent
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