Lies in education [was Re: The "loop and a half"]

[Tim Delaney]

On 5 October 2017 at 14:22, Steve D'Aprano <steve+python at pearwood.info>
wrote:

> The A and E in the word "are" are not vowels, since they are silent. The U
> in "unicorn" and "university" are not vowels either, and if you write "an
> unicorn" you are making a mistake.
>

There are dialects of English where the "u" in unicorn or university would
be pronounced "oo" (e.g. where heavily influenced by Spanish or
Portuguese), in which case writing "an unicorn" would not necessarily be a
mistake.

For a similar example, I and most Australians would say that writing "an
herb" is a mistake since we pronounce the "h", but millions of people
elsewhere would disagree with us.

Tim Delaney