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Use of Indefinite Articles with Acronyms

I noticed that you changed "an HPAC" to "a HPAC" in the Paranormal Terminology article. This will be the first time I defend my original.  :) Since the term is pronounced "Aitch-PACK", I would suggest that "an" is the appropriate article. Generally, acronyms that start with a separately pronounced A, E, F, H, I, L, M, N, O, S, or X (pronounced "ay", "ee", "eff", "aitch", "eye", "ell", "emm", etc.) would use the "an" article, in my opinion. Here is an outside reference on it: Dr. Grammar. I can accept it either way, but I did want to give you the reasoning behind my initial choice. Thanks again for your attention to detail.

--Bufocalvin 12:19, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

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Bufocalvin,

I appreciate your compliment, and your speaking up about a possible introduced error. An introduced error can be such a burr under the saddle!

Your reasoning about using "an" in front of "HPAC" seems sound to me. I took a peek at the Paranormal Terminology article and saw that the phrase it opens with is

A Human-Piloted Alien Craft (HPAC) is . . .

I'd say that the article (A) is relating to the first following item (Human), and though I've seen "an human" used on occasion, I wouldn't prefer it. Am I looking in the wrong spot?

Regards,
Candy, SCIFI.COM Staff
Cashanundudyub 15:34, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

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Hmmm...that looks perfectly reasonable. I may have looked at the changes without looking at the actual article preview, and missed that Human-Piloted Alien Craft was going to display in that position. I would expect the "h" to be pronounced in "human", so I would agree with the use of "a" there. Oh well, at least I introduced a standardization issue for the future.  :)

--Bufocalvin 18:37, 23 July 2006 (EDT)

Cheers for discussion pages!

We're agreed, and I have to give a shout-out to discussion pages for making this kind of conversation easy, and to you, because it's a pleasure to work with someone who enjoys contributing his expertise and can handle a possible editorial slip-up without taking it personally.

My compliments!
Candy, SCIFI.COM Staff
Cashanundudyub 15:35, 24 July 2006 (EDT)