Forums » RP Discussion » How am I supposed to say this?

Okay, so I've been having an inner turmoil for a little while recently:

I've been torn. Do I say "an RP" or do I say "a RP?"

Because grammar dictates that when you speak, and the word after a/an starts with a vowel, you pick an. The opposite is true with a.

Now, hear me out.

When I see "RP" in my head, I automatically mentally pronounce it "Arr-Pee." That starts with a vowel's sound, so I typically have in the past said "An RP."

But now I've come to RPR, where every post Kim makes concerning RPs says "A RP." I can understand her reasoning because RP is also an abbreviated form of "Role Play" which starts with a consonant.

SO NOW MY BRAIN IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE. HELP ME RPR.

100% your own preference. If someone writes "a RP" I automatically say "a roleplay" in my head. If they wrote "An RP" I automatically say "An Ar-Pee".

Both are absolutely valid.

I had that quandary for a while too, Oaky, and I asked Kim about it once! Paraphrasing her answer immensely, when she writes out "A RP", it's intended as "A Roleplay". That's the in-site reason for it, in the very least, but your grammatical points are spot on regardless. *thumbs up* There's no writeright or wrong way to do it, far as I understand. A Roleplay, An RP, A R(ole)P(lay). To-may-to, to-mah-to! Essentially what Sanne just said, but with more of my renowned ramblies

Edit: Wow, I so did not make that 'write/right' pun on purpose.

You say 'an RP'. There are many, many, many other instances for this as well. Like using 'a' instead on 'an' when using one. (A one-legged man.)

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/a-an.htm

Here is a link to the idea of this, though it isn't the exact link I wanted to give you.

Sounds like basically you use 'a' if it sounds like it starts with a non-vowel but use 'an' if it sounds like it starts with a vowel. That would mean "a role play" and "an rp". Not my knowledge I just put that together from everyone else haha

Is that right more or less so?

Okay that's great!

Thanks! I'm thinking I'm going to stick with "An RP."

i refer to them as stories

I've slowly come to accept that 90% of the site actually pronounces the letters... I have never once in my life done this, not even in my head. RP is pronounced "role play" to me, so I've never had any confusion on the subject!

I definitely say "an"!

This is interesting. I think I'd use 'a' since it sounds better to me personally but I can see how it could go either way. Of course my picking 'a' over 'an' has more to do with how things sound when I read them.

example

Print: A RP

My mental voice: Ah Are Pee/Pea(both spellings sound the same).

Example not based on any real RP:

'I was in a RP with X and we did Y so now the ship is kinda of a little bit on fire because of Y. If you don't want to RP the ship being on fire we can set this RP before that happened.'

I used to read RP as Roleplay until my old group of RP buddies stared typing RP out as 'arepee' which led to our OOC chats to be sillier and sillier as time has gone on and to me reading the letters as letters instead of as the whole words which they are an abbreviation of.