Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'Format _an_ NTFS hard drive in 10.3' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Format _an_ NTFS hard drive in 10.3
Authored by: marklark on Apr 22, '05 09:49:11AM

(Adding to the silliness, pedantishness, and general nitpickery here :^) The proper title to this hint should be "Format an NTFS hard drive in 10.3."

Thank you.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Format _an_ NTFS hard drive in 10.3
Authored by: meh on Apr 23, '05 03:38:31PM

I've never been sure of this one.
When using an acronym in writing should you use the first letter of the acronym, or the first sound of the acronym in spoken form?
In some cases, this could be a problem if the acronym doesn't have a standard pronunciation. For example, if talking about a SQL database, some people would pronounce each letter and say it as "Ess Kyuu El" while others would say "Sequel".
I knew NTFS is an acronym for something, but I didn't know what (though I just Googled it: New Technology File System).
Anyhoo, I'm not sure if there is a hard and fast rule for this kind of thing, but I admit I prefer "an" in this situtation, and failed to do it only because I was so excited to be posting my first ever hint here that I was just overwhelmed with emotion.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Format _an_ NTFS hard drive in 10.3
Authored by: pub3abn on Jan 03, '06 01:48:17PM

"An" is the correct article. The key point is that the article ("a" or "an") is determined by the leading sound, not by the leading character.

In this case, NTFS is pronounced by speaking its letters. It starts with the lettern "N" which is pronounced "en," which begins with a vowel sound, so it takes the article "an." Some letters in the alphabet have names that begin with vowel sounds, others with consonant sounds, so care must be taken to think about how the acronym is pronounced.

Some examples: "an NTFS volume," "a U.S. court," "an IRS document," "a PBS special." If you are a native speaker of English, those should all sound normal to you.

Some acronyms are pronounced like words (GIF, for example, which is pronounced "jiff" ... or some people say "giff" ... both pronunciations require the article "a"). Again, a writer simply needs to think about how the acronym is spoken.



[ Reply to This | # ]