Why we have both 'a' and 'an.' What does it mean to be lonely? Sufficiency.

Why we have both 'a' and 'an.' What does it mean to be lonely? Sufficiency.

920. Once you start thinking about it, it's weird that we have both "a" and "an." It gets even weirder from there! Plus, modern loneliness, and its solutions, are quite different from what they were when the word was first coined. We look at the history of this formerly rare word.

The segment on "a" versus "an" was written by Neal Whitman, an independent writer and consultant specializing in language and grammar and a member of the Reynoldsburg, Ohio, school board. You can search for him by name on Facebook, or find him on his blog at literalminded.wordpress.com.

The segment on the word "loneliness" was written by by Amelia Worsley, an Assistant Professor of English, Amherst College. It was originally published in The Conversation and appears here through a Creative Commons license.

| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/a-an-loneliness/transcript

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065 Regionalisms

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064 Between You and Me

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056 Generating Story Ideas and Overcoming Writer's Block

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055 Misplaced Modifiers

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048 April Fools' Day Episode

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266 When Should You Capitalize Cocktail and Food Names?

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042 Semicolons

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036 Grammar Manners

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