This may seem nitpicky but it drives me mad whenever I hear a supposedly educated news anchor say "it's an historic day." It boggles the mind how prevalent this is. The rule is that you use "an" when the H sounds like a vowel, as in "an hour" or "an honor;" or an acronym that starts with H, such as "an HMO." Otherwise if the H is pronounced you use "a," as is in "a hamburger" or "it's a historic day."
shareIt's fine. Don't sweat the small stuffs.
shareDon’t the Brits drop the h and say “-istoric”? In that case, “an” serves its purpose. The French make the same liaison, saying “l’historique” and not “la historique”
shareDon’t the Brits drop the h and say “-istoric”? In that case, “an” serves its purpose.
yeah sloppy brits will drop the H and use an an to fill in ...
but also posh brits will say "lets go to an hotel" and fully pronounce the H.
also uneducated brits will pronounce the letter on its own as "Haytch" , when its "aitch"
A ofcourse. The sentence would feel disjoint otherwise.
shareIn all main varieties of English, the use of an as the article preceding historic (an historic) is an unnecessary affectation. The rule for the indefinite article is that we use a before words beginning with a consonant sound, and an before words beginning with a vowel sound (Articulate Andy).
share
It's a strange kink of the language, isn't it?
As someone mentions, here in the UK, there are regional dialects (Cockney, for one) where aitches are routinely dropped. 'She's an 'andsome-lookin' gal,' ''E's an 'umble fella', and whatnot.
But 'history'/'historical' is the only instance I can think of where people who routinely follow the rule go for an 'an' but don't drop the aitch. So it always sounds slightly odd. I think it's basically because people don't know the rule. They just hear and repeat. That's how language actually works. Attempts to be prescriptive about it always fail in everyday usage.
Someone also mentions how some British people pronounce 'hotel' the French way (Not that strange. Think how Americans tend to pronounce the word 'herbs'), so that becomes an 'an' too.
So... I dunno, maybe we're in the intermediary stages of an evolutionary process where 'a history' is slowly turning into 'une histoire'. Ha! (Or 'a, if you prefer.)
The non-usage of 'h' in herb bugs the hell out of me; but I found out the word is from the French, who didn't pronounce the 'h' and it was only in the 1800's that the Brits started sounding the 'h', so silent 'h' seems to be the correct way to say it. I will still pronounce it with it though.
shareYeah. There's a surprising number of Americanisms that are as old as or older than their British variants. 'Herb' is one of many examples. Got/gotten, Fall/Autumn, -ize versus -ise, &c.
We Brits like to hunt Americans as one of our national pastimes -- 'Ruining our language!' -- but a wee bit of research will show anyone that often as not we changed and Americans preserved.
But, yeah, 'erb sounds silly to British ears.
It does!
shareAs a French speaker, I only use the non silent H if it's someone's name.
shareIf the 'H' isn't silent, it's 'A'. Always 'A'.
sharea dog
an apple
An historic day rolls off the tongue quite nicely. More nicely, actually, than the alternative. I think you let the rule get in the way of the purpose of its imposition.
What bothers me far, far more is people dropping the h sound when its commonly used, such as saying 'umble, or 'orrible' or 'anky panky', etc.