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A or An

Former Member

hi,

which article we should use A or An. for SAP and SCN.

A SAP employee is right

or

An SAP employee is right.

please suggest grammatically...

regards

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (4)

Answers (4)

vincentverheyen
Active Participant

One can notice that SAP itself also uses "an SAP". See for example this screenshot from the official source SAP Universal ID | SAP:

ThomasZloch
Active Contributor

Great to see somebody appreciating proper syntax, among all the disciples of SMS speak.

As a non-native English speaker, since the official pronunciation is "ess ay pee", I vote for "An".

Thomas

harishtk1
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

As a second non native English speaker, I second that.

As a third non native English speaker, I also agree this.

kenny_scott
Contributor
0 Kudos

II think the rules are that when the word or acronym beigns with a vowel sound then it should be preceded by 'an'. In the case of acronyms though, e.g., SAP they can be said as a word 'SAP' (in which case the first letter sound is a consonant - 's') or spelt out 'S', 'A', 'P'. (in which case the first letter sound is a vowel -'es').

So you would say an 'S','A','P'' product or a SAP product which seems to work OK.

Regards

Kenny

ThomasZloch
Active Contributor

That's perfect for hearing it. However when reading it, some people have S-A-P in their minds, others SAP. So, both "an" or "a" will sound wrong to the one or the other half. Then it comes down to the "official" sound of SAP, which I think is S-A-P.

Or am I being a sap?

Thomas

kenny_scott
Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Thomas,

I agree, officially SAP should be preceded by 'an'.

Regards

Kenny

Pravender
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Since SAP and SCN are acronyms, we should use 'An'.

harishtk1
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Not necessarily, old chap. For the acronym TTP (The TTP Project), I would use A and not An, I prefer to use Thomas Zloch's algorithm of whether the initial letter is pronounced as if it starts with a vowel.