An unit

To American ears (like mine), "an unit" sounds like a British affectation, right up there with "an horrible person" (though "an'orrible person" would be fine, if he weren't 'orrible).

The rule I learned is that you use "an" when the following word starts with a vowel sound. "Unit" does not.

Of course, there are differences between British and American usage, so I'll only pretend to report what's right for an American, not what's right, period. It's interesting to see that individual writers get confused about this, though--and apparently some of these pages are from American sources.

Adam - Certainly I can think of a lot of British expressions with 'an' before silent 'h'. An honour, for example. I think in the case of 'unit', spoken it is fairly trivial to decide (albeit with possible variations depending on accent), written I'm glad to accept the consensus of 'a', but still expecting proofreaders and editors to pause over it for a moment with a red pen.

It is common to put an "an" in front of words that begin with consonant aitches, particularly in the phrase "an historic moment." It doesn't prove much, but:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22an+historic+moment%22&btnG=Google+Search

At least you can see that Google found 12,100 examples of "an historic moment."

Outside of that, I don't think there are any exceptions to the rule that you use "an" in front of words that begin with a "vowel sound" (e.g., ugly, educated, e-mail, albatross, hour, Ypsilanti) and "a" in front of words that begin with a "consonant sound" (e.g., needless, preferred, zebra, unit, eunuch, yew, wheat, wowed).

Sorry. I forgot. You don't put "an" in front of all consontant aitches. You put "an" in front of consonant aitches that begin with an unstressed syllable (e.g., historic, hotel, horrific, heraldric), but not in front of consonant aitches that being with a stressed syllable (e.g., history, herald, hostile, happy, heated). But this is only believed and followed by some people (though "an historic moment" has developed a life of its own, particularly amongst speech-makers and press people), you will seldom be corrected for not heeding it, and you will often be corrected if you do.

Adam Rice wrote: To American ears (like mine), "an unit" sounds like a British affectation, right up there with "an horrible person"

What gives you the right to go about denigrating the British in this way when, as you admit, you don't know what you're talking about?

"An unit" is not used in English (British or otherwise) because it is wrong. End of story.

"An unit" is wrong love.

"an unit" is not a British affectation, it's simply incorrect. A British affectation is something like "an historic", which is using "an" before unstressed "h" -- which is listed as affectatious in American Usage references. Therefore, definitely "a unit", and better "a historical".

I believe "a unit" would be correct, just as "an honor" is correct. It's a matter of pronunciation; if the "a, an" rule was inflexible, it would defeat its own purpose, which is to make one's speech flow better. Since "unit" is pronounced "you-nit" and honor is pronounced "on-er", you generally go by whether the first syllable has a vowel sound or not.

This is not a grammar rule, and this is not an exception to a rule. It's a phonological rule to use 'an' before vowels and 'a' before consonants, and in phonology these are sounds. There's no grammar involved, and 'a unit' and 'an honour' aren't exceptional.

The rule is that you use "an" before a vowel, but that's understood to mean before a vowel SOUND. "Unit" begins with a consonant SOUND, a "y". So phonetically, you're saying, "YOO-nit." Therefore, you must use "A unit." "An unit" violates the rule.

If "Waiter" were spelled "Ouaiter," that wouldn't compel a change to "an ouaiter." It's all about the vowel sound, not the written letter.

Also note: a university, a union, a one-way ticket. All the nouns start with consonant sounds.

How about an LP. meaning a long play record?

I recently wrote a sentence saying, "This is from an LP."

Using an 'a' just wasn't as comfortable.

"An LP" is correct because the letter "L" is pronounced "elle" like the french pronoun. Since it is pronounced with a vowel sound, the article "an" is the correct option for this sentence.