off topic, but to my ear the “an” in the title is jarring. i’ve been wondering for a while now why “an” doesn’t feel right before some words, even though i learned “an before words that start with a vowel.”

turns out it’s “an before words that sound like they start with a vowel” regardless of how they’re spelled.

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/alt.usage.english/...