A FP1/2 or an FP1/2? How to write indefinite articles before the Fairphone abbreviation

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1

If you write the sentence:

I have a Fairphone 1 and a Fairphone 2.

but want to use abbreviations (FP1, FP2), do use the article “a” (because you pronounce it “a Fairphone 1/2”) or “an” (because you pronounce it “an Efpee 1/2”)?

  • Always “a”.
  • Always “an”.
  • I use both sometimes.
0 voters

Apparently both are right, but I guess most of us will think that only one of them sounds right.

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2

According to your own link apparently not, because you can only pronounce FP as an initialism, not as an acronym (I dare you to try in public :smiley:), resulting in “an” always being right :wink: .

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TBH @Stefan gave me that link and said it reinforce his argument that “a FP1” is true too, because you can pronounce it “a Fairphone 1”.
I hadn’t even read it. :blush:
Anyways I think FP1/2 is a special case because usually the question is: Is it an initialism or an acronym (e.g. FAQ can be both), but in this case the thing is that the actual word doesn’t take much longer to pronounce than the abbreviation, which is why some probably really read a/an FP1 as “a Fairphone 1”.
Nobody will read a/an FAQ as “a Frequently Asked Questions list”.
But I too think only “an FP1” is really right.

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4

I always use what sounds more fluent (helps me as a German living in Scotland most of the time):
an eff pea two
a foxtrott papa two
a Fairphone

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5

Don’t blame me for you not reading it! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Yep, since FP1 can only be an initialism, it’s always “an FP1”.

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