AAA
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SMBC, Zach Weinersmith, Oct. 3, 2025:
Not to mention what it can do as a letter, a noun, an article, a preposition, a verb, a pronoun, an adverb, a particle, a contraction, a conjunction, a symbol, and an interjection.
Selected readings
"A" — Wikipedia
McCarter, P. Kyle (1974). "The Early Diffusion of the Alphabet". The Biblical Archaeologist. 37 (3): 54–68. JSTOR 3210965. S2CID 126182369
[h.t. Ted McClure]
J.W. Brewer said,
October 4, 2025 @ 9:14 pm
In words of ultimate Latin origin it can mean either toward, as a clipping (in certain phonological contexts) of "ad," or away from, as a clipping of "ab" in ditto. That's versatility. Although I think the phonological contexts suitable for the two clippings tend to be different, so you don't get too confusing a minimal pair.
unekdoud said,
October 5, 2025 @ 12:06 am
Are any of those prefixes pronounced /a/?
David Marjanović said,
October 5, 2025 @ 7:10 am
a a
– Pāṇini
In English? Not that I can think of; I'm pretty sure they're all unstressed.
Philip Taylor said,
October 5, 2025 @ 8:55 am
How about the "a" in a priori (or in a posteriori, for that matter), David ? At least, for those of us who don't pronounce the first syllable /ˌeɪ/.
Bob Ladd said,
October 5, 2025 @ 9:33 am
@ David Marjanović:
There are lots of cases in which the prefixes under discussion are stressed, or at least not reduced. E.g. atheist, amoral, aphonia, amnesia, apposite, appertain, addict, afferent,/I> and, of course, affix! I can't think of any cases where Latin ab- reduces to a- while retaining a full vowel, though.
Chas Belov said,
October 5, 2025 @ 2:25 pm
@Bob Ladd:
Although despite being stressed, some would be pronounced differently. Of the words I know:
Long a: Atheist, amoral.
Short a: Amnesia, appertain, addict, affix (noun).
Schwa: Affix (verb, unstressed).
Which does raise the question for me: ¿Are there any English words in which a schwa occurs in a stressed syllable?
Brett said,
October 5, 2025 @ 3:55 pm
@Chas Belov: I feel like the second syllable of desultory has a unusual stressed schwa.
Philip Taylor said,
October 5, 2025 @ 4:59 pm
Does it differ from the verb sound in "pull", Brett ? It doesn't for me.
Garrett Wollman said,
October 5, 2025 @ 5:02 pm
A use the comic missed due to the changing times: if it's from the phone book, it's to make the listing sort earlier. Not too much point in being "A A A-1 Auto Repair" any more.
Gokul Madhavan said,
October 5, 2025 @ 11:15 pm
In Indian classrooms, it is still common to order students by alphabetical order of their first names. As children might sometimes also be seated in this order, parents who want their kids to sit at the front of the class often give them names starting with two As. Spellings like “Aaditya” which would formerly have been spelled “Aditya” (though pronounced exactly the same) are now not uncommon.
In my childhood, it was usually enough if your name started with “A”, but within a generation the battle has escalated to two “A”s. Perhaps in another generation, we may be looking at Indian names spelled with three “A”s (that is, assuming schools exist a generation from now.)