I can't figure out why when I enter the word 'fish' for original its printing vowel.
#Begin program
original = raw_input('Enter a word:')
if len(original) > 0 and original.isalpha():
word = original.lower() #make sure original is lowercase
first = word[0]
if first == 'a' or 'e':
print "vowel"
else:
print "consonant"
else:
print 'empty'
if first == 'a' or 'e'
Change it to
if first == 'a' or first == 'e':
Or
if first in ('a', 'e'):
Your if statement is evaluating to True since you are doing a boolean OR with a True value ('e').
Non empty strings in Python evaluate to True.
>>> bool('')
False
>>> bool('a')
True
Hence, your code gets evaluated as
if (first == 'a') or True:
which is always evaluated to True and hence the if statement is executed.
Your if condition is wrong. Specifically,
if first == 'a' or 'e':
won't work. It needs to be
if first == 'a' or first == 'e':
The original statement evaluates like this:
if (first == 'a') or ('e'):
if (False) or (True):
Here's an explanation of truth values in Python. Note that characters evaluate as true.
It's because if first == 'a' or 'e': is being treated like if (first == 'a') or ('e'):
Since 'e' is truthy, the or is returning true
To avoid such situations and to make your code more clear, write
if first in ('a', 'e'):
...
or
if first in 'ae':
...
