The letter name is fromMiddle Englishā, fromOld French, ultimately fromLatinā. Use of the Latin letter in (Old) English displaced thefuthorc letterᚪ(a) beginning in the 7th century, and partially alsoᚫ(æ).
The current pronunciation resulted from theGreat Vowel Shift. Before the early part of the 17th century, the pronunciation was similar to that in other languages.
1974, Ervin A. Dennis, John D. Jenkins, “A Font of Type”, inComprehensive Graphic Arts, Indianapolis, I.N.:Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc.,→ISBN,page26, column 2:
Note that with 18-point type, fifteen capitalA's, twenty-five lowercasea's, and twelve1's are obtained with one font. With this information, it is possible to refer to Table 10-1 which gives the number of characters for each letter, punctuation mark, or figure.
Across every sheet of paper were lines and lines of letters of the alphabet. A row ofa's followed by a row of b's and so on, pages of them, like pages from a copy book, crudely formed as if from the hand of a young child.
In the seventh grade I admired a charismatic, witty girl who had a particular way of writing her lowercasea's. After some practice, I took to writing my lowercasea's in the same fashion.
1816,William Young Ottley,An Inquiry Into the Origin and Early History of Engraving[…], volume II, London:[…] John and Arthur Arch,[…] by J. M'Creery,page621:
This piece somewhat resembles ana. On the left is a man seated on the ground, with a dog between his legs, and a large bird of prey in his hands, which appears to be biting his head.
But with some prelude of disparagement, / Read, mouthing out his hollow oes andaes, / Deep-chested music, and to this result.
[1906, Leigh H[adley] Irvine, “Abbreviations in General”, inThe Magazine Style Code: A Manual For The Guidance Of Authors, Reporters And All Who Write, San Francisco, C.A.: Crown Publishing Company,pages15–16:
Letters should be spelled as follows;aes, bees, cees, dees, ees, efs, gees, aitches, ies, jays, kays, els, ems, ens, oes, pees, ques, ars, esses, tees, ues, vees, ws or dubleyuz, exes, wyes, zees.]
1993, Frank Pagden, “Teaching”, inThe Gospel According to St. Lynas, Tunbridge Wells: Mitre,→ISBN,unnumbered page:
St Lynas was chatting with a group of rebellious young college students one day, who decried the moral standards of the past. ¶ So St Lynas drew an'a' on some paper, and asked them what it was. ¶ 'A' they said.
He had another formidable difficulty in getting him across the river, where both horses stuck fora time in the mire, and Beatte was nearly unseated from his saddle by the force of the current and the struggles of his captive.
Speaking asa servant, I am deeply indebted to you. Speaking asa man, I consider you to bea person whose head is full of maggots, and I take up my testimony against your experiment asa delusion and a snare.
1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, “Preface”, inThe Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.:Field Museum of Natural History,→ISBN, page vii:
With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied;a herbarium packet gives one onlya small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get[…]
2005, Emily Kingsley (lyricist), Kevin Clash (voice actor), “A Cookie is a Sometime Food”,Sesame Street, season 36, Sesame Workshop:
Hoots the Owl: Yes a, fruit, isa[sic], any, time, food!
In retrospect, I realise, I had been unconsciously devotinga large amount of energy to negative choice, a concept I'm borrowing and adapting from sociologist Eva Illouz's 2019 treatise, The End of Love (by way ofa viral Paris Review essay).
The C.I.A. infiltrated not just magazines, radio, and movies but youth organizations and movements like Abstract Expressionism; all were meant to inspirea reverence for democracy and freedom,a project that, in Walker's telling, often tips into absurdity.
By the time he gets onto a chair, the pristine powder snow below the lift has already been chopped up bya hundred tracks, and the line to get back up stretches the length of a football field.
But I was going to say, that while I was dawdling about abroad, I sawa good many talented young fellows making all sorts of sacrifices, and enduring real hardships, that they might realize their dreams. Splendid fellows, some of them, working like heroes, poor and friendless, but so full of courage, patience and ambition, that I was ashamed of myself, and longed to give them a right good lift.
Twenty years after the movie's release, we knowa lot more about the Atlantic Ocean's circulation. Instruments deployed in the ocean starting in 2004 show that the Atlantic Ocean circulation has observably slowed over the past two decades, possibly to its weakest state in almost a millennium.
The blues were eating leisurely, swimming about and opening their great mouths, spouting and filling their enormous stomachs with intense satisfaction. They had no idea of danger. There must have been about fifteen of them, peacefully feeding. One of them, its belly gorged probably witha few trillion plankton, seemed to be lying asleep on the surface.
The impact of hidden virality can't be stopped by retroactively banninga few thousand Twitter accounts; it is an iterative, memetic phenomenon that outpaces terms of service.
If, for example, you ask a child what he likes to do, he may say he doesn't know. However, if you watch him during free time, and note that he plays basketballa lot, you may infer that this is a high-probability behavior, and he finds it reinforcing.
2009, James H. S. McGregor,Paris From the Ground Up, Cambridge, M.A.; London:Belknap Press,→ISBN,page163:
The bridge was shifteda bit to the east and rebuilt, this time with the shops of money-changers along both sides.
You don't need to go cold turkey to help your health. Even reducinga little bit can be beneficial, especially if you currently drink over the recommended limits.
My friend Cindy's husband, Michael Zahavi, a true chocoholic if there ever was one, adores this tart. In fact, when I visited their cottage up in Muskoka, Ontario one summer and brought this along as a treat, he got up in the middle of the night to nosh away at it, leaving us sleepyheads with narya crumb the next day.
Used before an adjective that modifies a noun (singular or plural) delimited by a numeral.
The lottery jackpot is wortha staggering three hundred million dollars.
The holidays area mere one week away.
One; someone named;used before a person's name, suggesting that the speaker knows little about the person other than the name.[4]
We've received an interesting letter froma Mrs. Miggins of London.
Used before an adjective modifying a person's name, typically used to emphasize that person's current condition or emotional state.
1963, Robert Hancock,Ruth Ellis: The Last Woman To Be Hanged, London:Orion, published1993,→ISBN,page35:
At Waterloo she asked George for £5 and said that she would go home by tube, anda relieved George watched her descend the Underground steps.
[Jules] Pécher actually sculpteda sort of Statue of Liberty for the centerpiece of the monument, but for the rest he thought it advisable to call in Van Rasbourgh, and Rodin thus became a ghost sculptor to a ghost sculptor.
Billy fancied himself as a bit ofa Han Solo, but he shook his head. 'Stop being a wuss.' He grinned. 'Your go.'
2020, Laura Erickson,The Love Lives of Birds: Courting and Mating Rituals, North Adams, M.A.:Storey Publishing,→ISBN,page81:
For the first 5 or 6 days after the eggs hatch, the mother spends most of her time keeping the chicks warm while the father provides most of their meals. All that work may be what prompts the female to leave the family. They share feeding duties more equally during the next week or 10 days, until the young leave the nest. Producing a second batch is easier if she skips the last grueling week or two of provisioning fledglings. She can recharge her batteries by moseying off and, while on vacation, looking fora new Casanova.
"Well, I reckon it did, marm, for that shot woulda gone a couple a inches deeper but for my old mammy's camphor bag," answered the cheerful philosopher.
He dropped below me, with the current, and by-and-by he come a-swinging up shore in the easy water, and he went by so close I coulda reached out the gun and touched him.
They live in the river bottom. Don't you know a thing? I thought you musta seen them, since they was here all winter, cutting at the woods and burning brush.
'I never told him, pleaded Liam. 'If I 'ada done, he'da taken the rifles, wouldn't he? Thing is, I wanted to fire a gun for real. See what it felt like. So I just borrowed it and went out on me own to have a go. But I didn't get the chance because I came across a patrol and I panicked and chucked the thing in a bin.'
Isis rode my mug like she was on a ten-inch dick, and as soon as she nutted I tossed her ass offa me and flipped her on her back, then fucked the shit outta her cause it was payback time.
1923 January, “The Sunshine of Childhood (Contributed)”, in Benedict Brown, editor,The Grail, volume 4, number 9, St. Meinrad, Ind.:The Abbey Press,page284, column 2:
James was going with his mother to attend the ceremonies at which his oldest sister in the convent would make perpetual vows. Being asked where he was going, he answered, “I’m goin’a see my sister make percapital vowels.”
"Sure, Billy, I'ma run downstairs to the machine and get me a pack ofbigarettes," he said, taking off with his Melody.
2012, Bertrand E. Brown,Sylvia's Dilemma: A Novel,→ISBN,page95:
Ain't nothin' in the house to eat and now that we has Mr. Alex staying with us a few days I'ma need to buy some groceries so yous two can have the house to yo'self 'til I get back.
2018, Monica Jeremie,Married to a Dade County Bully 2, Urban Chapters Publications,→ISBN,page85:
1655, William Barton,Man's Monitor, or, the Free-school of Virtue; Holding Forth the Duties Required and Sins Forbidden in the Two Tables of the Law., London: W.D. for T. Underhill,unnumbered page; republished inEarly English Books Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.:Text Creation Partnership,p.2011:
By cocka pie and Mous-footDent bring's in, / Examples to express forbidden Sin:
TheOxford English Dictionary notes: "The form is not common in any period, and some of the earlier examples could instead show a transmission error foran in its abbreviated form (i.e. ā, with mark of suspension)."[5]
"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies," said he, "and you shall each read a page by turns; so that Missa—Miss Short may have an opportunity of hearing you"; and the poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians.
