this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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Offtopic:
This feels odd, it seems like proper English, with the An since the next word starts with a vowel, but something about it feels off and I might be too dumb to realize what it is.
It's because it's a typo, and supposed to be "an UNusually...."
And the "a vs an" rule is more based on the sound that the word starts with, rather than just the actual letter.
So for "usually", it's a "You-" sound
But for "unusually" it's an "Uh-" sound
That makes so much more sense, thanks!
🎉 Glad to be able to help 👍
Definitely was a typo on my part!
I think it's because "usually" starts with a Y consonant sound (yoo-sually), instead of a vowel sound
because while “usually” starts with a ‘u’, we typically pronounce it as if it started with a ‘y’
Because the u in usually is pronounced like the consonant y, like “yew”. We use “a” before consonant sounds.
The u in unusually is pronounced like the vowel sound u, like “uh”. We use “an” before vowel sounds.
This is because two vowel sounds in a row is somewhat awkward and doesn’t flow as easily with how you live your mouth to pronounce things. Using “an” puts an extra consonant sound in between the two vowel sounds.
It’s odd because wide adoption of rooftop solar is still unusual, so I think the wrong word was used. It should read:
“An unusually wide adoption of rooftop solar…”