> Sam, I would not think to question you as to what is an "unfailingly intuitive" rule for people for whom English (or American) is a first language.
> Let us not damn people for not knowing the rules unless we can tell them what they are. And to tell newcomers what the rules are we have to have worked them out ourselves.

That was a beautiful post, but I'm not sure if you were just being informative or trying to right a perceived haughtiness on my part. I certainly wasn't "damning" anybody, or even frowning down upon anybody who didn't know the unspoken rule we were speaking of (there's a paradox!). And I do understand that the rule in question is only "unfailingly intuitive" to native English language speakers -- up until this point, I, at least, was proceeding under the assumption that we were all native English speakers here, as I have yet to see a post written here that might suggest otherwise. Actually if anything, I was suggesting that many of the unspoken rules of English *are* difficult, even for native English speakers, as the a/an rule is the *exception* in its unfailing intuitiveness.

Oh, and it's "grammarian" -- get it right. :-) :-)