A university - a horse an hour

[Guest]

Why do we use a university instead of an university, and a horse and an hour?

Thanks.

[Conchita]

It’s a matter of phonetics.

The indefinite article a is used before the word university, because the ‘u’ here is sounded like a consonant.

Before words beginning with a vowel or with a mute ‘h’, like in hour, you need to use the article an. In the word horse, the ‘h’ is not silent.

[Alan]

Hi Conchita,

When I read the heading on the forum I thought this must be the title of a new entry for the Eurovision song contest. What do you think?

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Indirect Speech

[Conchita]