There is a Canadian joke that is related to this very thing:

    Where did the Québécois get that H sound for Ottawa?
    They took it out of here.

When speaking with a French Canadian accent, Ottawa sounds like Hottawa, and Here sounds like Ear. There is a similar more adult-oriented joke about the word Happiness. It is utterly baffling to Anglophones, especially since whatever rule they are following doesn't apply to the word Ontario, which pretty much sounds the same as in English.

If you've never heard Quebec French, imagine Celine Dion telling the joke and you'll get it.

Maybe it's based on emphasis? 'Ott.a.wa vs on'ta.ri.o

The Happiness joke is based both on the missing H and the different emphasis on syllables, so you are probably right or at least close. The subtraction of H in words like Here and Happiness seems like a different rule than its addition on hard vs soft initial-O words, though.

What Happiness joke? I’ve lived in Montreal for 15 years and never heard it.

It sounds like "a penis" to Anglos unaccustomed to hearing the French language rhythm, plus the unpronounced H.

"An Nvidia engineer" would actually be grammatically correct here, since the pronunciation of "Nvidia" starts with a vowel sound and not a consonant one. It's the pronunciation of the word that matters for a/an, not the spelling.

In case anybody was wondering, the official pronunciation of the word "Nvidia" is apparently "en-VID-eeyah" [1].

[1] http://international.download.nvidia.com/partnerforce-us/Bra...

...and the name comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invidia (pronounced almost identically), also the eye logo.

(I find it amusing that the last item on that logo guidelines is basically saying no to its own site.)

I wish my English teacher told me this 20 years ago. It all makes sense now. Mind blown.

I didn't know that, I always got told it depends on the first letter (and it didn't make sense for me for some words).. (Obviously not a native speaker)

Nope, it's based on the first sound. (Hence "an hour" rather than "a hour").

This is also why it's "a university".

Wait, what? So the rule isn't that the pronunciation starts with a vowel sound? Instead it's a more murky thing about how easy it rolls off the tongue?

University starts with the 'y' sound, hence "a university." On the other hand, "an unimpressive fact" uses "an" because "unimpressive" starts with the 'u' (vowel) sound.

University has a kind of "y" sound, like the word "yes", which isn't considered a vowel sound.

Doesn't "university" start with the "y" consonant sound?

Don't tell the knuckle draggers still pretending that "history" has a silent-H.

That's an accent thing. In some places the "h" is silent, and in other places it's not.

Is there any English dialect in which it's silent in "a history"?

That’s why the pronunciation of “an history” is such a contentious issue in British political linguistics to this day. Crucially, as has been observed correctly, the rule is that one should use the appropriate indefinite article. That in turn depends on whether one pronounces, as pirates, or has a silent ‘h’, revealing one’s origins even once the guise of Received Pronunciation had been defensively adopted.

Don't worry too much: I am a native speaker and I was taught the same in elementary school!

What is the grammar rule?

I've always assumed that you use "an" whenever a noun starts with a vowel sound, which "Nvidia" does ("n" being pronounced as "en"), thus making "an Nvidia" the grammatically correct one.

This is actually a deeper issue about the confusion between the language itself (english phonology requires what you're describing) and the written form. No english speaker in the world, unexposed to the written form of "Nvidia" would ever say "A Nvidia."

The rule is just "which one is easier to say? use that one". "A nvidia" is just wrong.

That entirely depends on how you pronounce "nvidia" in your head. I can imagine someone who has never heard the name spoken out loud think of it as "ni-vidia" (I have done worse) and "a Nividia" is easier than "an Nividia"

I mean, that's just pronouncing it wrong.

You are right: my point is that the easy way to say something can very well be the wrong way to say it.

I meant is it easier to say "a nvidia" or "an Nvidia", assuming you are pronouncing nVidia correctly.

I'm pretty sure "an NVidia" is grammatical here.

The ppronunciation is "en-vidia", so yes, "an Nvidia" would be correct.

If the company was pronounced ni-vidia (or any other vowel in place of that first `i` vowel, then "a Nvidia" would've been correct.

Just like it's "a user" not "an".

or 'an uber' instead of 'a uber.'

Thought it is a Uber as you say yu-ber in English. It sounds different if in German?

You absolutely do not say you-ber in english

I think I learned something new here. I've always thought the rule was "use `an` if it _is_ a vowel, else use `a`".

If I understand this correctly now, it's "use `an` if it makes a vowel _sound_, else use `a`".

It’s definitely about vowel sounds, because we don’t say “a hour” or “a herb”.

> It’s definitely about vowel sounds

Exactly, and Nvidia begins with an e sound.

And we say "a union" because it begins with a y sound and not because it begins with the letter u.

In the UK, people do say "a herb", but that's because we pronounce the h: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/herb#Pronunciation

> a herb

I do, but that's because I pronounce the 'h' in 'herb'.

"we" being Americans: the rest of the English-speaking world says "a herb" as the "h" in "herb" is not silent

An historic day!

That's just weird over-correction. "A historic day" is correct but for some reason people heard "An historic day" and the idea spread that it was a special exception.

Kind of like how you see lots of people on Reddit saying "water isn't wet, it just makes other things wet". They heard someone else say it and it sounds smart so they repeat it, without spending 10 seconds to look it up in a dictionary.

To me it may be a tell for the writers at one point pronouncing it as "'istoric", similar to those who say human as "'uman", and then as you said likely fanning out as an over-correction, possibly because that dialect was associated with prestige.

Yes maybe once upon a time but it doesn't explain why people say "an historic" today.

I an struggling to understand what is wrong with the phrase "water isn't wet, it just makes other things wet". Can you explain?

Water is wet. There's nothing wrong with it grammatically. I just meant it was an example of people blindly copying untrue but smart-sounding facts.

deleted; i misread the parent comment

"hour" starts with an 'o'-sound, since the 'h' is (mostly) silent, so "an hour" is correct.

Be careful though. There are words that start with a vowel when written, but are pronounced with a consonant. Eg "a universe".

HN battling over grammar which is a standard. Focus on topic!

Yeah the rule is just "which one sounds better?". That's why "an" exists in the first place - because saying "a nvidia" is super awkward.

The English word “apron” comes from the French “napron.” “A napron” became “an apron.”

Isnt "an orange" also supposed to have come this way?

The French word is napperon.

That IS the right grammar. A Nvidia is wrong.

I certainly would have preferred “an engineer that currently works with Nvidia”

The way it is written currently makes it sound as though Nvidia owns this person.

> The way it is written currently makes it sound as though Nvidia owns this person.

Not to anyone with a shred of common sense. That's a pretty common way of putting it that's far less clunky than the way you wrote it.

> The way it is written currently makes it sound as though Nvidia owns this person.

You can't be serious.

And now they own his home office as well!

Titles with character length limitations do create tension that pulls sentence construction toward concise information density over strict readability, but avoiding unintended implicit statements in titles is a concern of mine.

This usage is acceptable because if you simply delete the word nvidia, we lose valuable context which tells us why we should pay attention to this post over any other engineer’s post with analogous drivers for this use case: the pedigree of the engineer suggests that the driver will be performant and of a similar quality as those other drivers produced by the engineer’s company.