Why we have both 'a' and 'an.' What does it mean to be lonely? Sufficiency.
Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing21 Mar 2023

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.

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