I have a question about acronyms. Take the acronym RPG for Role Playing Game/s, a kind of programming language. Now if we spell the acronym out in a sentence we get " I want to get a role playing game." But if we use the acronym it seems to me that it would be “I want to get an RPG.” Is this correct? It sounds like it should be “an”, just checking.
Thanks,
Matt Shepard
“an” is correct if people normally pronounce the letters as words. Thus “an RPG” is correct, since it’s prounounced “an are-pee-gee.”
If the acronym is pronounced like a word, then the initial sound of that word counts (e.g., “a radar device”)
My memory of this rule is fuzzy (and I suspect it’s one there’s plenty of disagreement on) but I’m literal-minded when dealing with written English: RPG is short for “role-playing game,” and you wouldn’t write “an role-playing game.” Hence it should be written, “a RPG.”
Spoken, of course, it’s hard to avoid saying “an arr-pee-gee.” No one ever said written and spoken English follow the same rules, though.
The usage of “a” and “an” depends on the sound of the following word, not on the spelling. For instance, “unicorn” starts with a consonant sound (“yooneekorn”), so you would say “a unicorn”. On the other hand, “umbrella” starts with a vowel sound, so it’s “an umbrella”. The actual spelling is irrelevant. It also doesn’t matter if it’s an abbreviation, so you’d say, for instance, “a BB gun”, even though BB is an abbreviation.
Words starting with “h” are a fuzzy area… Depending on how much you stress the h sound, they can take either. Most Americans use a rather strong h, so we say “a historic event”, for instance, but Brits and people who want to sound like they went to Harvard (excuse me, I meant 'Ahvahd) tend to use a much weaker h, (at least where there’s an actual h in the word), so they would say “an 'istoric event”.
What do you mean, by the way, about RPGs being a type of programming language?
The alt.usage.english FAQ agrees with RealityChuck: it should be (according to them) “an RPG”:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-usage-english-faq/
However, their description of the rule highlights a big problem with it: what if there’s no agreement about how the the acronym is pronounced? Take FAQ, for example. Some people say “fak,” while others say “eff aay kew.” So is it “a FAQ” or “an FAQ?”
Or how about URL? Here’s a site that claims it should be “an URL”:
http://www.eeicommunications.com/eye/utw/98apr.html
I don’t know anyone who pronounces URL as “earl,” but it would be silly to pretend that usage for this term has settled down yet.
So I say damn alt.usage.english and their fuzzy, useless rules! My rule is: be literal-minded in your writing (“a RPG,” “a FAQ” etc.) and sloppy in your speech (“a yew are ell” or “an earl,” your choice.) It may be an inconsistent rule, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to remember than the correct pronounciation of every single acronym ever invented.
(BTW, “radar” began its life as an acronym, but sometime during the last 50 years it was blessed by the language fairy and transformed into a Real Word. Hence the lower-case spelling.)
found it in a book glossary
RPG:A programming language that is good for generating reports, but is more cryptic than most other programming languages.
That’s a little broad, but that’s what the book says.
Correct. It was originally created by IBM in the 60’s, and stands for “Report Program Generator”. It was on a mainframe environment from back when I was in school. People would always refer to it as “Random Paper Generator” from the voluminous amount of line printer output usually associated with its use.
In fact, Chronos, the place I saw it was at YOUR institution. I was at MSU back in the final days of their Sigma era.
*Originally posted by Wumpus *
**
So I say damn alt.usage.english and their fuzzy, useless rules! My rule is: be literal-minded in your writing (“a RPG,” “a FAQ” etc.) and sloppy in your speech (“a yew are ell” or “an earl,” your choice.) It may be an inconsistent rule, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to remember than the correct pronounciation of every single acronym ever invented.
**
Wow, I really disagree with this. The written word is, after all, a representation of the spoken one. While I don’t move my lips when I read, I do hear a subtle “voice” in my head that’s delivering the words to me.
If I read “a RPG,” I would stumble immediately, just as surely as if I read of a golfer who was “a LPGA tournament winner in 1999.”
BigStar: You’d also stumble on either “a historic occasion” or “an historic occasion” – yet either is correct, depending on the dialect of the writer! Likewise, you’ll flinch at either “a FAQ” or “an FAQ” as well. The current “proper” rule does nothing to prevent that disconnect between the printed page and your inner voice.
A rule for written language that depends on individual/regional pronounciation habits is a bad idea in the global village, methinks.
Gotta agree with BigStar, Chronos, et al.
Like you wrote, Wumpus, with “FAQ” there is room for interpretation. If you say “ef-ay-queue,” then the correct indeterminate article is “an.” If you pronounce it “fack,” then it’s “a,” of course. However, with “RPG,” unless you say something like “rippig,” which I doubt, you should write “an RPG.”
This more or less echoes the alt.english article you cited. Think about it…do you write “a x-ray” or “an x-ray”? To me, the former sounds silly and stilted. “An MRI” or “a MRI”? “He got an SAT score of 1400” versus “He got a SAT score of 1400.” The use of “a” here is contrary to speech patterns and the rules of English, so why would you write it otherwise?
Speech patterns aren’t the ultimate authority when it comes to written language. There are all sorts of things that are perfectly acceptable in spoken language that are frowned upon in written English–sentence fragments, incredibly long run-on sentences, repetition, etc. If you made a literal transcript of your own speech, you’d see a lot of things far more jarring than “a RPG.” Just ask a court reporter or a journalist. (Journalists, of course, routinely translate spoken English into written English to as not to disturb their readers.)
My suggestion for a new written rule is based on common sense. The current rule requires the writer to know the accepted pronounciation of any acronym he comes across. However, by their very nature, many acronyms don’t have accepted pronounciations (e.g. FAQ, or the zillions of acronyms that only exist in scientific or technical writing). So why not treat the acronym as what it is–shorthand for the actual words?
Of course, common sense and language have little to do with each other, so I don’t expect my proposal to get very far.
*Originally posted by Wumpus *
**BigStar: You’d also stumble on either “a historic occasion” or “an historic occasion” – yet either is correct, depending on the dialect of the writer! Likewise, you’ll flinch at either “a FAQ” or “an FAQ” as well. The current “proper” rule does nothing to prevent that disconnect between the printed page and your inner voice.A rule for written language that depends on individual/regional pronounciation habits is a bad idea in the global village, methinks. **
First of all, I DO stumble upon “an historic occasion.” I might be willing to grant you a little wiggle room if, as you say, some British speakers still tend to drop their initial “h”'s.
But when I read this in print in an American publication, or hear an American speaker say “an historic occasion” out loud, then I know I’m confronting someone who smugly thinks he or she is being oh-so-correct, when in fact they’re being absolutely incorrect.
I am guided by what is still my favorite reference book on the English language, The Harper Dictionary of English Usage by William and Mary Morris. The very first words of the very first entry are:
"One of the most common mistakes, both written and oral, is the use of an before ‘historical’ or ‘historic.’ Even the guide to the White House, published in 1965, was titled The White House: An Historic Guide.
"When the word following the article begins with a consonant sound, the article used is a. When it begins with a vowel sound, the article used is an…
“Correct British usage now also calls for sounding the initial ‘h’ in all words except those mentioned in the paragaph above [they were honest, hour, heir, honor and their derivitives].”
As pulykarnell points out, there is no ambiguity about the pronunciation of RPG and most other acronyms. So there should be no ambiguity about which article to precede them with.
Just for the record, yesterday I saw a BBC World report on Milosevic’s extradition to the Hague, and the anchor did, in fact, say “an 'istoric” occassion. So at least for his pronounciation “an” is correct. But in other contexts, as in “it was historical,” the “h” is more pronounced. One of the quirks of British English, I guess.
*Originally posted by Wumpus *
Speech patterns aren’t the ultimate authority when it comes to written language.
The ultimate authority when it comes to written language ought to be readability – or the ability to convey thoughts without distraction or interruption.
Would you not agree with me that 99% of all readers of English would stumble if they read “a RPG” or “a SAT score”? And would you not agree that this would be an undesirable state of affairs?
p.s. Also, when you read written text out loud, it sounds fine. So when “He wennup tadaendada alley an’ turned out ta fitty-fift shtreet” gets turned in “He went up to the end of the alley and turned out to fifty-fifth street,” it reads fine out loud, as is. “A RPG” does not sound fine when read aloud.
pulykamell – Ah, but the proper way to read “a RPG” is “a Role-Playing Game.” After all, an acronym is just shorthand for the actual words! (If the reader doesn’t know what the acronyms are shorthand for, well, you haven’t done your job as a writer. Any acronym should be defined first, unless you’re absolutely certain your audience knows the lingo.)
Of course, the real secret to good writing is to avoid acronyms when you can. They’re alienating. I can’t think of any reason to use “RPG” instead of “role-playing game” in formal writing, for example.
BigStar – “A historic” vs. “An historic”: As usual, the Canadians are conflicted about this. See
http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/words/ananda.html
The article weakly reccommends “a historic” on the grounds that even the Brits now tend to pronounce their "h"s. Of course, this argument could disappear if pronunciation changes again, as it is wont to do.
(I’m a Yank living on the Ontario/Quebec border, so I’ve had a crash course on when one does and does not pronounce "h"s. I live just across the river from Hull, Quebec. Hull is of course pronounced “hhHull” in English. However, in French it’s pronounced “'Ull”. A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a jazz broadcast on Quebec radio. The announcer pronounced Herbie Hancock’s name with a perfect American accent, and then proceeded to announce, in French, that he was broadcasting from 'Ull. It cracked me up, but in fact his usage was perfectly consistent. He pronounced the American name with an American accent, and the Quebec name with a Quebec accent.)
I disgree that an acronym is a simply a notation that subsitutes for the correct words. I agree, that many times the long form should be used, we are drowning in acronyms. Especially bad are acronyms that take as many syllables to pronounce as the original words!
But your argument that “RPG” is really a short way to write “role playing game” is wrong, because people actually say “arr-pee-jee”. It is not a subsitution, and if it is a substitution then it should be removed that the words it is substituting for should be used.
Sure, I’m against acronyms. But if they are used, they must me used as they are pronounced. If there is no clear standard way to pronounce them, then people who insist on correct usage should then avoid them. But pretending that acronyms don’t exist is simply hiding your head in the sand.
*Originally posted by kgriffey79 *
**I have a question about acronyms. Take the acronym RPG for Role Playing Game/s, a kind of programming language. **
Not to be picayune, but RPG is not an acronym, but an initialization.
ditto Lemur
The correct way to read “SAT” is “ess-ay-tee” not “Scholastic Aptitude Test.” Just like “RBI,” when written, is read as “are-bee-eye” (or “ribbee” by some.) If you want to be so technical about acronyms, shouldn’t the plural of “RBI” be “RsBI”? Nobody in their right mind would ever write this. It’s “RBIs.” That’s how we say it, and I would say it’s because we parse “RBI” as a single linguistic unit, not as the words it stands for. Same as “RPG.” If I see “RPG” I don’t think “role-playing game.” RPG automatically triggers a certain concept in my head, without me unravelling the acronym.