A sms or An sms?

[maxspeed]

Which one is correct?

[diverhank]

An sms would be my vote.

[Torsten]

Hi Diverhank, you are right. It an SMS. By the way, I've been told that Americans don't use SMS that often. Is that true?
Thanks and welcome to english-test.net!
Torsten
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[Jamie (K)]

It has to be "an SMS", because the word SMS begins with a vowel sound.

[maxspeed]

SO "a universiy" and "an hour" use like that but the perplexing part was that it is an abbreviation.Thank you very much

[diverhank]

[Jamie (K)]

[maxspeed]

it stands for "short message service".Actually i do not know whether it should be used like the following "i have sent her an sms". It is the name of the service not the message .I think an "sms message" instead of "sms" would be more suitable.What do you think.

[Jamie (K)]

I think that in the US we just call that "text messaging". We seldom call it SMS; we just say we send a text message. Americans use it, but it's a pain in the neck to type on a cellphone, even if you're good at it, so it's almost always better to leave a voicemail. I rarely receive text messages.

[Torsten]

[Torsten]

[Jamie (K)]

Follow the money. It's probably got to do with their rate plans. I don't know how US and European cellphone rates compare, but I do know that US telephone rates tend to be cheaper in general, and text messages here are usually more expensive than phoning.

Another thing is that in some European countries there is a surcharge (sometimes quite a large one) for calling from a land line to someone's cellphone and maybe even in the other direction. A friend was nervous about the cost when I phoned from his land line to someone's cellphone, but here there's nothing to make anyone nervous. Charges like this don't exist in the US, and everything costs the same no matter which type of phone you're calling. Also, if someone calls my cellphone from Germany or some other country, I'm charged by the minute, the same as for any call. I understand European plans charge more in situations like this.

Right now there's a commercial on American TV in which a father tells his teenage kids that they're switching cellphone plans. He tells the kids that now the family can send all the text messages they want. The kids say, "But we do that now!" The dad replies, "Yeah, but now your mom can give up her second job."