‘A’

When we look at “a” we pronounce it /ā/, or “ayy.” This is the first letter of the alphabet, and when looking at the isolated letter, we’ll refer to it by its name: the way we say it when we begin to recite the alphabet. This is known as a long vowel sound, because it says the “name” of the letter. The same goes for the other vowels.

A short vowel sound is a vowel sound that does not follow this rule. When reading a word that uses a short vowel sound, will say the sound that the letter can make that is not its actual name. So in the case of “A,” the word “main” might have a long “A” sound because we pronounce the “A” as /ā/, whereas the word “man” has a short vowel sound.

The letter A and the article a are 2 different words. Hence saying ay for the A1. No one.eould say mmm 1, it's the name of the letter. Interesting about the sat nav though

Haitch makes my teeth itch along with mis-chee-vious.

Aah the good old 'Chester draws'. We could buy it to go with the 'free peace sweet' (honestly)

justwokeup I have seen an advertisement on.FB Marketplace for a “chester draws”.?

Here, in NE Scotland, it's a very definite 'a' as in cat

Oh but Bathsheba it's lovely to have a rant! I hate to hear 'draw' instead of 'drawer'. It has 2 syllables! I've even seen it written 'draw' in a furniture catalogue. I have to agree with 'uh' by the way, sounds right to me, although I have to admit I pronounce it both ways (as in 'have a rant' and 'a furniture catalogue') .

I believe I say 'ah', but of course my Canadian 'ah' would be different from someone from London. It may be different from someone on the other side of Canada.

If I said ' I have a cat', the sound in 'a' is less sharp than in 'cat'. A slight difference, but there.

One thing I have noticed is the pronunciation of Graham. I live on Gray-um Avenue, but have notice some younger generation pronouncing it gram. It's an American pronunciation.

Another thread on a specific topic in Pedants' Corner that just degenerates into a litany of the same old same old 'pet hates'. Read one thread in this forum and you've read 'em all <sigh>

We were debating when the clock goes back and we lose an hour, pronounced R here. An English friend was very confused until the penny dropped.oh, he said condescendingly, you mean an ow eer!

My biggest bug bear is a certain female newsreader who pronounce year as your. Drives me mad.

In N I only Catholics pronounce the H. Don't really know why but easy way to know where you went to school!

Welcome Lizzie 66. What gets my goat is when the word sixth is pronounced sickth. Sixth is not difficult to say.

Seriously....I wish I had this much time to waste on such a discussion ???

My pet hate at the moment is that woman who interrupts everything I listen to on the car radio with "Chaffic updates". The awful weather today made driving conditions very difficult for people around here with slow moving 'chaffic' and 'chaffic' congestion on the motorways, grrrr!

Well pantglas2, that gives a whole new meaning to the command ‘Go to your rum’ . I’d say ‘Certainly, ‘Bye’.
I think you’ll find though that aristos and the ‘Top’ layers of society pronounce room as ‘Rum’ Just as they do ‘Rarely’ for ‘Really’ and ‘Sinjun’ for ‘St John’. To name but 2..
I’ve seen ‘Mousetrap’ in the theatre and loved it.Amazing that after all these years the audience was still asked not to reveal the murderer to anyone. (I never did)
Bit daft, but fun.

I think a lot of pronunciation is down to regional accents. I am from Yorkshire but when I lived in Surrey I picked up the baath instead of bath. Happily now I'm in the West Country I've reverted to bath again

I always say a as in apple or at least I think I do , not sure where uh comes from but I've never knowingly used that pronunciation for a

Oh, go on, then. What about plitical, compluhcated or even complercay-id?

I was always taught that missing out 't' in words was scruffy and the result of rushing. But it's much harder to say si-ing than sitting. And Nick Robinson's Mancunian time-checks make me laugh - it's haff pust seven.

(Isn't is hard to persuade your spell-check to let you write these weirdies?!)

What about newsreaders and media calling it "Bregsit",when it should be "Brexit" !!!!!

I am sitting here Ai ing, uh ing and A ing. Basically I think I don't know what I say when now.

Went to see Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap and the pronunciation of the word ‘room’ was strange to our Welsh ears! ‘Rum’ is what we heard whereas we’d say ‘rwm’ - but then we say ‘bath’ not ‘baath’!

I haven't noticed any problems with "A" but when someone pronounces "H" as "Haitch" instead of "Aitch" it makes me growl.

oldgaijin ?

I've just been to see Downton Abbey and all the above stairs people speak beautifully. I loved it!

Don't get me started on the HAITCH!!!