• wakest@lemmy.mlMEnglish
      141·
      1 year ago

      I posted this from mastodon where you can’t link to communities in that way…

    • BlessedDog@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I thought it was typed “a URL”, not " an URL"

      Not sure though, dont kill me, English isn’t my native language.

      • 133arc585@lemmy.mlEnglish
        91·
        1 year ago

        They’re both acceptable in English. The rule is generally “an” if the following word starts with a vowel. But, it gets a bit tricky with initialisms (like URL) because URL is normally pronounced something like “you-are-ell”, and not “earl”. So the spelling starts with a vowel, but the pronunciation doesn’t. Nobody would fault you for using one or the other in a situation like this.

          • 133arc585@lemmy.mlEnglish
            31·
            1 year ago

            I’m sure some style guide(s) have hard and fast rules but being called out for it in everyday conversation doesn’t (shouldn’t) happen for something like that. English also isn’t French, it doesn’t have a regulatory body, and so attempting to pin down certain things as definitively correct or definitively wrong isn’t always a reasonable thing to do.