Comments:

Denver doug - 2007-10-29 00:36:30
And so the World Series is over, Red Sox all the way. Maybe next year we will have another chance. Good ball was played, I enjoyed watching.
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~ Sil in Corea - 2007-10-29 04:58:15
All my life, until 2004, us Soxers said, "Just wait till next year." And now I'm over here, they won it twice in 4 years.{Groan} Never give up, your team is a good one. They proved that in the play-offs.
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Jim - 2007-10-29 06:30:44
You're quite right about using 'a' or 'an' depending upon pronunciation of the following word. If it is pronounced with an initial vowel sound, then 'an' is used; if it has an initial consonent sound, then 'a' is used. Thus, some people say 'an historic moment' and others say 'a historic moment' depending on if they pronounce 'historic.' (With certain acronyms it might depend on whether or not the acronym is pronounced as a word or as a collection of letters.)
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l'empress - 2007-10-29 10:14:20
Granted, English is a "slippery" language, in which it is easy to ignore the rules and still be understood. But the rules of collective nouns have been twisted so badly that you'll hear it two ways in one sentence: "The Denver team is a great team, and they played really well until the Series." Not to mention that there can be one Met or one Yankee, but no one ever saw a Red Sock (unless he played for Cincinnati).
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Jim - 2007-10-29 21:47:15
At some point American English split from British English in treating nouns that represent groups. We say Congress is; Brits say Parliament are. Interestingly, our treatment of the the United States appears to have changed with the Civil War. Prior to the war people tended to say the United States are; after the war they began to say the United States is.
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