Learn English – Difference between “an” and “one”

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Forgive me if I miss something very obvious; English is not my native language.

I am currently taking an online (sort of) Math class that aims to teach creating/writing unambiguous Mathematical statements. (Don't worry, I'm in the right SE site and my question isn't about Math). The professor gave an example of ambiguity in human language (English) that according to him may mean the same but actually have two different meanings.

He said, "One American dies of melanoma almost every hour." is not the same as "Almost every hour, an American dies of melanoma."

Well for me, the two sentences means the same. Is the article "an" is reason for the supposed change in meaning of the sentence? Or is it the placing of the adverbial phrase "almost every hour"?

Best Answer

This is not English. It is mathematical logic. Your professor is trying to contrast the two statements:

(1) ∀ hour ∃ American who dies of melanoma.
(2) ∃ American who dies of melanoma ∀ hour.

As @Tim's comment suggests, the second statement means that the same American dies of melanoma every hour.

Neither of these statements is what either of the English sentences

(1) Almost every hour, an American dies of melanoma,
(2) One American dies of melanoma almost every hour,

really means in English. They both mean the same thing. If you want to state it mathematically, you need to say something like:

Consider the number of Americans n who die of melanoma between times t1 and t2, where the times are measured in hours. For large t2 − t1, n is with high probability slightly less than t2 − t1.

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