Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 24, 2025

When the word starts with a vowel sound, Goat.

It’s “An” in front of a Vowel SOUND, so a Utah Jazz game would be fine.

Even Goat is wrong. If the next word SOUNDS like a vowel then put “an” in front of it. Pig is already confused and he didn’t help.

Can I say “A is a letter”?

Goat, did you understand what he said? Then STOP correcting!

Barbie got it wrong. English is hard.

Another thing that bugs me: why do we say “anhydraulic” but we also say “ahistoric”?

Different pronounciations of English words over ‘The Pond’ always amuse me in movies and tv shows.

I loved my Grammar, my Grandpa too!

Only sometimes Y. Or the Y sound.

A bunch of special needs kids in a choir could only sing good, after eating a apple and drinking a can of Tab soda. They became known as Moron Tab an apple choir.

In the Honeymooners episode where Ed Norton (Art Carney) and Ralph are making a TV commercial for some kitchen gadget that Ralph wants to sell, Ed says “Can it core a apple?”

I remember years ago when I heard a news announcer say for the first time “an historic event”. “An” before h-words now sounds normal to me.

Grammar Nazis…. their everywhere…

wordexample. com/list/words-beginning-vowel-no-an (delete the space before com)

These words seem to begin with a vowel, but they’re actually pronounced with a consonant sound. That’s why they use the “a” article instead of “an”. There’re dozens…

…and when it’s a proper noun add an extra N like Ann Arbor, Mi.

The bigger issue is why the Utah team is called the Jazz and the LA team is called the Lakers. Could have changed the names to something more appropriate when the teams moved.

Also, why Toronto used the incorrect plural for its hockey team.

I’m guessing he got there within a hour.

Fun fact: the Utah Jazz originally played in New Orleans, where the name made a lot more sense. Likewise the LA Lakers, who started out in Minneapolis.

What does a squid kid have to do with this?

If Im 99 pounds and i eat a pound of nachos, am i 1% nacho? Yall want to hear my near year’s resolutions? 4k, 1080p, and 1920×1080 (Full HD) If atoms never touch, then do we have only have 4 senses? What happens if you press the brake and gas pedals at the same time? Does it take a screenshot? If apple made a car, would it still have windows? Why are cookies called cookies and bacon called bacon when you bake cookies and cook bacon? Your first birthday is technically your second birthday. Nothing is on fire, fire is on things. Fire trucks are actually water trucks. Does a straw have one hole, or two? Bean bags are boneless sofas. If you stab a cereal box, are you a serial killer? If two people on opposite sides of the world drop a piece of bread on the ground, earth becomes a sandwich. Are oranges call oranges because oranges are orange, or is orange called orange because oranges are orange? If tomatoes are fruit, can ketchup is jam. Shouldn’t phone chargers be apple juice? You have fingertips, but you don’t have toetips, yet you can tiptoe but not tipfinger. Teeth are the only problem where if you ignore them, they will go away. The object of golf is to play the least amount of golf.

With English as my third/fourth language, this is one I shall keep for future use.

???

One opposite of “a Utah” is “an hour”.

Caught the “mistake” in frame #1 and knew the joke before looking at the next. Maybe I missed a little detail like the Kennedy assassination in the remaining frames, but I don’t think so. :)

“I before E except after ….” isn’t always applicable, either. Or is it neither?

What are you? The grammar police?

Vowel SOUND, not necessarily a pre-vowel rule.

If you’re looking for lot of useless answers just ask whether it’s a hemorrhage or an hemorrhage.

somewhere I was told that the more advanced a language gets, the easier it is to communicate in it, but the fewer rules it follows.

Next time, Goat, be more specific when explaining these things to Pig.

And don’t even get started on pronunciation in English!

Pastis done poked the bear today.

9th grade English teacher loves this one, Stephan!

At least he wasn’t also texting while applying makeup and steering with his knees.

“A” needs a consonant sound for protection against a word that wants to be “the.”

You have to take into consideration who invented the language.

I’m surprised that pig knew what a vowel was….

GO JAZZ!

Good thing he wasn’t checking his texts

If you remember the 1984 election you remember the kerfuffle over whether the Time headline should be “An Historic Choice” or “A Historic Choice”.

Ooh, reading all that sets my teeth on edge.

No, a ‘yu’ is a consonant sound, ‘u’ is a vowel sound.

I hear so much bad grammar in my work day, I ask where did we go wrong. Why do people I talk to say ‘a payment processed’, not ‘a payment WAS processed’ anymore?

‘Mother Tongue’ by Bill Bryson.

“An historic occasion” took me a while. But a wild-ass English professor finally convinced me.

speaking that 3rd panel out loud is kinda hard

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

They will always be the New Orleans Jazz to me.

And . . . the classic sign at the department store checkout counter: “Instant Credit in 5 Minutes.”

Sometimes it seems there are more exceptions to the rules for English than there are rules.

I find it confusing, as ‘Utah,’ to me, starts with a ‘u’ sound exactly, yet ‘an utah jazz’ sounds incorrect, whereas ‘understanding’ does NOT start with a ‘u’ sound, yet it’s ‘an understanding.’

No one need reply with corrections to my ignorance, as I rely on what sounds right, and I’m fine with that…

His next report card will have straight An’s.

Grammer, once properly explained really does (almost) make sense: the article, ‘a’, ‘an’, or ‘the’, modifies the noun following. In this case it’s ‘game’. ‘Utah Jazz’ is an adjectival phrase descriptive of the noun.

So if the Jazz was on the road in northern California, would pig go to a Yreka Utah Jazz game? And how does that fit in with Ireka, Eureka, and Wereka?

English has a thousand rules and two thousand exceptions to the rules.

I want to know how Pig was driving while eating an apple *and sipping an iced tea.

Since it became okay (not with me) to say “an historic event” nothing makes sense any more.

A local restaurant slogan reads, “Training Table- A Utah Original”.

Just be like the British and place an H or Y sound before every vowel. That way, both “an” or “a” sound wrong – problem solved!

Love how you unravel the complexities and absurdities of the English language like a word ninja or a master of phrases!

An Utah Jazz game works too

My rule is if it sounds stupid or awkward, it’s wrong.