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As a result, countless speakers have needlessly second-guessed themselves wondering opens in a new windowwhether they should write “a university” or “an university” “a unicorn” or “an unicorn.”Ī lot of confusion could have been avoided if generations of kids had just learned that U represents a vowel in words like “umbrella” and “put,” and that it represents the sequence of the consonant “yuh” and the vowel “oo” in “university” and “unicorn”! For example, we’re used to thinking of the letter U as a vowel.

This may seem like a picky distinction, but if you’re not clear on whether you’re talking about orthography or phonetics, things can get confusing. The short answer is that vowels (and consonants, too) are the actual sounds we make when we talk, and that A, E, I, O, and U, and all the other letters of the alphabet represent those vowels and consonants. Long pronunciation is indicated with a horizontal line above the vowel: ā, ē, ī, ō, ū.So how can I possibly claim that A, E, I, O, and U are not vowels? Sounds Versus Letters These pronunciations are often denoted by typographical signs: a curved symbol above a vowel represents short pronunciation: ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ. In the English language, each vowel can be pronounced many ways but the two most common variations are long and short. Long Pronunciation: "The mute on his lute was acute." (lūte, mūte, acūte).Short pronunciation: "He cut the nut with a knife from his hut." (nut, cut, hut).Long Pronunciation: "I wrote the quote on the note." (wrōte, quōte, nōte).Short pronunciation: "That spot on the pot's got rot." (spŏt, pŏt, gŏt, rŏt).Long Pronunciation: "The site of the bite from the mite was red." (sīte, bīte, mīte.).