If you search Google Books for ukulele you get a very large selection of excellent books including Jim Beloff’s classic The Ukulele: A Visual History and Ian Whitcomb’s Ukulele Heaven: Songs from the Golden Age of the Ukulele.

photo credit: strollers

Linguistically speaking, if a noun starts with a vowel sound it’s ‘an’ and for a consonant sound it’s ‘a’.

But there is plenty of disagreement on whether the word ‘ukulele’ starts with a vowel sound or not. The Hawaiian way of pronouncing it is ‘oo-koo-lay-lay’ i.e. with a vowel sound. The most common way to pronounce it in the mainland US, and the rest of the English speaking, world is ‘yoo-ka-lay-lee’.

Hardcore ukulele traditionalists (aka pedants) will tell you that the Hawaiian pronunciation is the only true and correct pronunciation and therefore only ‘an ukulele’ is correct. However, unless you live in Hawaii, your English teacher is unlikely to be familiar with the derivation of the word ukulele and will strike a big red line through ‘an ukulele’. But it would certainly be fun proving them wrong. Unless you’re trying to embarrass your English teacher, stick to ‘a ukulele’.

There is one issue that is completely clear cut: anyone who says ‘ook’ rather than ‘uke’ is clinically insane and should be dragged to the nearest brain-doctor.