A Twitter Grammar Question

PJ Vogt:

We all know the rule for “a” versus “an.” […]

So the sentence “I read a Guardian article” is straightforward. But what about on Twitter? Any time you mention someone in a sentence, you use their handle. Which means every name on Twitter starts with @, a vowel sound. Do we count it? We tried to figure that out this morning.

I say no — even if you’d say the “at” aloud verbally, in writing you should choose a/an based on the first letter in the Twitter handle, not the @ character. Tricky question though.

★ Wednesday, 23 April 2014