Grammar question: Englisn and Python: qualified names

[Chris Angelico]

Quirky question time!

When you read out a qualified name, eg collections.OrderedDict, do you
read the qualifier ("collections dot ordered dict"), or do you elide
it ("ordered dict")? I ask because it makes a difference to talking
about just one of them:

.... or possibly a collections.OrderedDict...
.... or possibly an collections.OrderedDict...

Written, the latter looks completely wrong; but if the name is read in
its short form, with the "collections" part being implicit, then "an"
is clearly correct! What do you think, experts and others?

ChrisA

 

[Stefan Schwarzer]

Hi Chris,

Quirky question time!

When you read out a qualified name, eg collections.OrderedDict, do you
read the qualifier ("collections dot ordered dict"), or do you elide
it ("ordered dict")? I ask because it makes a difference to talking
about just one of them:

... or possibly a collections.OrderedDict...
... or possibly an collections.OrderedDict...

Written, the latter looks completely wrong; but if the name is read in
its short form, with the "collections" part being implicit, then "an"
is clearly correct! What do you think, experts and others?

I think if you _write_ "collections.OrderedDict", the
article you _write_ in front should match this. The phrase
"an collections.OrderedDict" looks odd to me, and if I read
it somewhere, it wouldn't cross my mind that the writer used
"an collections.OrderedDict" with the idea not to pronounce
"collections". ;-) In my opinion, this is too subtle.

On the other hand, when you _speak_ about the ordered dict,
use the article matching what you actually say.

Best regards,
Stefan