Possible Duplicates: “A user” or “an user”? Use of “a” versus “an” If I remember correctly back to my school days, the rule is to use "a" if the next word starts with a consonant, or "an" if the next word is a vowel. For example: Thi...

Possible Duplicate: Use of “a” versus “an” Which is correct — “A Year” or “An Year”? I noticed an ad on Stack Overflow featuring another StackExchange site and the title of the question had this in it: Allow an user to... But shouldn't it be Allow a ...

is it 'a usual' or 'an usual'? 'A usual' sounds more correct in my head ('Today was a usual day.') than 'an usual', but u is a vowel. Which one is correct and why?

From Wordweb: Group of people willing to obey orders The department responsible for hiring and training and placing employees and for setting policies for personnel management The two are kind of clashing. One says group ready to obey, while other says group that would make someone obey. Are ...

I came accross the following sentence: There will be 110 personnel in the store on launch. Is it better to phrase it like so: There will be 110 persons in the store on launch. Which of the two is correct? Please advise. Thanks.

I can tell you right now what will happen: none of the predictions will be right, or, if any are, they will be right for the wrong reasons or in different ways from what the predicters expect. Even this prediction will probably be wrong in profound and unexpected ways. EDIT: Citation according ...

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence The claim is not supported and therefore the following image of Sir Paul McCartney shot in 2010 is enough to prove differently: . Image courtesy of Wikipedia You may not be convinced, in which case please take into account that you will need to prove...

We know that Abbottabad is named after Major James Abbott, an officer in the Indian Army who founded the town. But where does the "...abad" come from?

Is there an easy way to remember when to use the word affect or effect in a sentence? It is very confusing, and I still get them mixed up.

We usually say "10 pounds", but for a single bill we say "10 Pound note" and not "10 pound(s) note". And when we have a lot of notes we say again "10 Pound notes". Why this disparity?

Why are year, pound and mile in the singular form in the phrases below? five-year-old children 20 pound note 10 mile run Is that because they're acting as adjectives, which are always invariable in English? Is it incorrect to say... five-years-old children? 20 pounds note? 10 miles run?

It's not about a contraction "winning" over a possessive. "Its" is the possessive form of "it", like "his" is of "he", "hers" is of "she" or "their" is of "they". There is no missing apostrophe; the forms go back to a time when English was a highly inflected language. It predates modern, or even ...

I know that its is the possessive and it's is the contraction, and know when to use them. But why doesn't the possessive have an apostrophe? "The bear's eating a fish." [contraction] "The bear's coat is brown." [possessive] "It's eating a fish." [contraction] "Its coat is brown." [possessive] ...

I notice do you copy that is used in movies to ask for confirmation in telephone/interphone conversation. I only know copy means make things duplicated, so why use it in do you copy that, is there a history about it?

…actually means "do you hear me"? This phrase is used (in movies) during radio communication, for example.