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What is the correct sentence.

  • I am a IT degree holder.
  • I am an IT degree holder.
Sasa1234
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  • Welcome to ELU. The second sentence is correct with an before a vowel. You may wish to visit ELL and see if that site would be more appropriate for your requirements. https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions – Nigel J Nov 05 '17 at 06:08

1 Answers1

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I am an IT degree holder.

The basic rule decides whether it's an "a" or an "an" based on how you pronounce the noun. In other-words, because you pronounce "IT" as "eye-tee" it would be "an" (the noun begins with a spoken vowel).

From my marketing days, we had the acronym "FUD," pronounced "Fuhd." It would be "a FUD-based plan" (if you're wondering, FUD = "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt." Marketing is just one very, very small step away from lying... and more often than not you'd find that small step somewhere behind you.)

On the other hand, the acronym "FX" is pronounced "Eff-Ecks," so it gets "an." E.g., "It's an FX problem." ("FX" is used in the various entertainment industries to mean "effects" or "special effects.")

So, remember, "a" or "an" depends on how you pronounce the word/abbreviation/acronym. If the pronunciation begins with a vowel, it's "an." If it begins with a consonant, it's "a."

The "exception" is for words beginning with "H." The old rule states that all words beginning with "H" take an "an" ("I'll revisit the matter an hundred fold"). However, this rule (at least for U.S. English) is changing as the language evolves and "H" words are increasingly preceded by "a" ("Give me a hundred dollar bill"). Because this "rule change" is in flux, you'll find die-hard believers on both sides of the argument.

In my humble opinion, the reason it's changing is because we (at least the U.S. "we") are slaughtering the pronunciation of the article "a." Rather than pronouncing it correctly as "ay" (the sound you hear in the words "hay," "pay," and "clay"), it's becoming common to hear it pronounced "uh." That's why it's easier to say "a hundred dollar bill," because while "ay hundred" is difficult to roll off the tongue (thus, the rule for "an hundred"), "uh hundred" isn't. Lazy, but languages change for laziness, too.

Decapitated Soul
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JBH
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    Pronouncing "a" as "uh" is normal and standard. The pronunciation "ay", used in emphasized contexts, seems to be the result of re-stressing that occured after the reduced form of the article was already in common use (like how some American English speakers pronounce stressed "of" as "uvv" rather than as "ovv", due to the influence of the unstressed form). The article "a" is etymologically the same as the word "one"; obviously, the unreduced pronunciation of the word "one" does not include the sound "ay" for Southern British English speakers (although it may in Scotland, I suppose). – herisson Nov 05 '17 at 18:13