DR. ENGLISH: A or An and Acronyms 

Thanks to the magic of electronic communication, it’s possible for the good doctor to make house calls. Make your needs for visitation known by sending your request to info@gbageoprofessionalorg.kinsta.cloud. Here’s a recent exchange.

Member:

Help us, Dr. English! We are debating the use of “a” or “an” before REC, the acronym for ASTM’s “Recognized Environmental Condition.” The controversy stems from whether one pronounces the acronym as a word or individual letters.

Dr. E:

Glad to help! The article you select – “a” or “an” – indicates how you believe the acronym should be pronounced. Phonetically…

A rec or An are-ee-see.

Thus A NASCAR fan and An NCAA Final-Four fan. Phonetically, NASCAR begins with the letter N while NCAA begins with the letter E (En See Ay Ay).

Member:

Thanks for the quick response, Doctor. Looks like we need to decide for our purposes if REC should be an acronym (a “wreck”) or an abbreviation (an “are – ee – see”), or – to avoid confusion – if we should simply spell out “recognized environmental condition” throughout the report as is done in the ASTM standard.

Dr. E:

Bear in mind that acronyms were created in the age of typewriters, to make things faster and simpler at a time when one mistake on a page meant retyping the whole page. Now, with global editing, you can change 6,284 RECs to 6,284 recognized environmental conditions in about what? 2 seconds?

And so it goes.