I am older than the topic and I have always considered them "eleedees". Lead always seemed ambiguous slang. Check out the entry for it at http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary John Ferrell 6241 Phillippi Rd Julian NC 27283 Phone: (336)685-9606 johnferrell@earthlink.net Dixie Competition Products NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW "My Competition is Not My Enemy" ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith L. Kovala" To: Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 11:14 AM Subject: Re: [OT]:blink programs > What an interesting discussion to come up on a tech listserv. After 16 > years of speaking English, as my first language, it wasn't until I was in > Japan as an exchange student that I learned the an/a rule. It was so > baffling to me to see a written rule for the use of an/a from the aspect of > English as a foreign language. It was some Japanese students that were > having trouble with this simple grammar structure that asked me which was > right, and when. I sat there for several minutes running through as many > combinations of a/an that I could think of, and sure enough, the rule of 'a' > before a consonant sound and 'an' before a vowel was true. I'm sure I > learned the rule somewhere as a young child, but English was so ingrained > that I didn't think of that rule explicitly when forming a sentence. > > So, if that's the case, then 'Blink an LED" would be correct when > spelling/sounding out L - E - D > and 'Blink a LED' would be correct when saying 'lead' (Pb) or 'lead' (long e > sound) > > I do the long e variation, too many mech-e's around! GRiN > > Keith L. Kovala > klk@ksu.edu > klk@renderedelement.com -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads