Category talk:English terms that begin with a written vowel but are preceded by the indefinite article "a"

RFD

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What's this good for? We have Appendix:English_articles#Indefinite_articles (linked to from both a and an) which describes the situation in detail, so the category is unneeded. Or do we want Category:English terms that begin with a written consonant but are preceded by the indefinite article "an" as well? -- Prince Kassad 22:54, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Keep: I've seen people writing things like "an user" before. People make mistakes. An appendix is not the best place to list all words that fit the category. However, if possible, shorten the name of the category. --Daniel 23:04, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

And the fact that the vowel is written doesn't really help, because it would mean most words beginning with u- could be added to the category. —CodeCat 23:31, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Delete. Or, failing that, rename. What these words have in common (together with all words in <u-> /ju/ and <eu-> /ju/) is that they start with a vowel letter and a consonant sound. If the category name reflected that, it might be worth keeping. Maybe. —Ruakh_TALK 23:46, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

If the category name reflected that, however, it could include the entries "users" (a plural) and "using" (a verb form). The current category name doesn't allow both words. --Daniel 23:48, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

google books:"a users' guide", "a using statement". —Ruakh_TALK 00:05, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, right. :p Point taken. --Daniel 00:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

• I can imagine this being useful, if only a) the category name was shortened and b) we came up with a sister category for words like hour, honour, etc., which, although start with consonants, should be preceded with "an" because the initial sound is like a vowel. ---> Tooironic 00:58, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

We should cover this somehow, and a category seems more logical than appendices. Appendices usually end up with very few incoming links. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Keep the content, either as a list in an appendix or as a category full of entries. - -sche (discuss) 02:58, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Delete. This category doesn't highlight any special exception in the English language. I think that people should know in general that words beginning in /j/ take "a", rather than having a category of words that are perfectly regular. More usage examples in the entries saying "a user" or whatever would help people get a more intuitive understanding. Additionally, categories are in general supposed to be comprehensive and I'm not so sure I would want this category to appear on thousands of pages. —Internoob (Disc•Cont) 04:46, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Convert to an Appendix and link it from a Usage Notes section of relevant words. --EncycloPetey 14:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I hope one day in the future we can replace any such categories with phonetic searches using pronunciation data, but that's probably some way off. Equinox ◑ 14:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Delete. Also create an Appendix and make a cleanup list to encourage insertion of the usage note linking to the Appendix. (Ie, I support EP's idea.) I have seen no evidence that a category name that may appear several screens below the landing screen is of any use to actual human users of Wiktionary. Even if it appears on the same screen, do we really believe that users look to categories for usage warnings? DCDuring TALK 14:56, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Deleted. I moved the three entries to Appendix:English articles; feel free to create a dedicated appendix to add more entries to. - -sche (discuss) 06:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)