is it a SAE or an SAE?

[loobeylou]

this is annoying me, having seen it written on a form this morning as "please send a SAE" I know you would say "a stamped addressed envelope" but would you not say "an SAE" if you were using the letters because of S sounding as "ess", so you need to use an not a ?

does that make any sense?

I think it would be 'a SAE' and 'a MNer'.

It's 'an' SAE, because the first sound of SAE - eh (as in 'ess' for S) - is a vowel.

Same for 'an' MNer - because the first sound is 'em', which begins with a vowel.

Wouldn't that make it "send in an self addressed envelope"? It doesn't sound right.

No, because the first sound in 'self' is 's', which is a consonant, and so takes 'a'.

I might not be explaining this very well - it's to do with how you say the sounds out loud, not which letters are written down. 'Stamped' starts with an 's' sound, but SAE (spoken out loud) starts with 'ess', not 'sss'.

Hmm. ds agrees it's an, not a because the letter of the next word is a vowel.

I'm soo thick!

It's a self-addressed envelope but an SAE.

yes, that's what I thought,policywonk and Meg, you would never say out loud a SAE because it sounds like it begins with a vowel even though it doesn't(in fact it's quite hard to say a SAE!)

so the form I had was incorrect and I was right to feel annoyed

(trying not to twitch madly)

I guess the "MNer" one depends what you actually say when you see "MNer", do you say em en er, or muh nuh er (not likely), or mumsnetter

If you pronounced 'MNer' like 'MP' then it would be an MNer. You don't say a MP, do you?

I think it is much more common to say/read "Stamped Addressed Envelope" even when it's abbreviated to SAE, whereas you do say "Emm Pee" for "MP" rather than "Member of Parliament". Consequently, I vote for "a SAE" and not "an SAE"....

An SAE, an MP, a stamped addressed envelope, a Member of Parliament. All to do with hwo you say the first word/letter - eS and eM need "an"; stamped and member need "a".
And the "a" is either "ah" or "ay" depending on emphasis ( it's "ay specific member of .." but "ah member.. where you don't mean an individual one).

and it would be "an eMeNer" but "a Mumsnetter" in speech; presumably it could be either written as it depends how you would say it in your head/out loud.
But we've sorted out the pronounciation of ROFL, perhaps we need to work on other acronyms?