"a historic" or "an historic"--Vote

[Goliath]

Posted by Goliath:

An historian wrote an historical article about an historiographical problem on an historic occasion.

That whole sentence doesn't even sound right. I can see why one would use "an" before historic, historian, or even historical. But historiographical? It's almost like saying "an hideous beast," "an hysterical laughter," "an homosexual man."

An hysterical laughter, yes. Like "historical," it places the stress on the second syllable.

An hideous beast and an homosexual man, no.

Interestingly, Monty Python has a character in "The Bee License" sketch who first describes his fish Eric as "an 'alibut," dropping the h. Then, enunciating more clearly, he describes Eric as "an halibut."

 

[ITL]

An hideous beast and an homosexual man, no.

Those are aitches I would drop. I drop just about all of them. I need 'elp! Take me to an 'ospital!

 

[Goliath]

^

 

[Gryffindorian]

Posted by Goliath:

An historian wrote an historical article about an historiographical problem on an historic occasion.

That whole sentence doesn't even sound right. I can see why one would use "an" before historic, historian, or even historical. But historiographical? It's almost like saying "an hideous beast," "an hysterical laughter," "an homosexual man."

An hysterical laughter, yes. Like "historical," it places the stress on the second syllable.

Not in America.

 

[Goliath]

Not in America.

You don't stress the second syllable in hysterical?

 

[Alidar Jarok]

No, we do. If people read the link in the first post, they'll see the rationale for why it was historically "an" and why it's developing so both are proper (and, possibly, at some point "a" will be the only proper method). They mention the varying degrees of stress. -STOR is the primary stress. HI- is a secondary stress. The ICAL part receive tertiary stress. Compared to the end, the Hi seems to be stressed, but it's still not as stressed as Stor.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Not in America.

You don't stress the second syllable in hysterical?

I do. But I've never used "an" before hysterical, never heard anyone say it, or never read it in print. It's usually like this:

"That was a hysterical chapter in her life."

 

[RoJoHen]

Not in America.

You don't stress the second syllable in hysterical?

I do. But I've never used "an" before hysterical, never heard anyone say it, or never read it in print. It's usually like this:

"That was a hysterical chapter in her life."

You also very likely pronounce the H. Not everybody does.

 

[Goliath]

I do. But I've never used "an" before hysterical, never heard anyone say it, or never read it in print. It's usually like this:

"That was a hysterical chapter in her life."

That just doesn't look or sound right to me.

Interesting--I just googled some of these phrases.

"an hysterical"--134,000 hits
"a hysterical"--563,000 hits
"an historical"--7,120,000 hits
"a historical"--18,000,000 hits

 

[Gryffindorian]

You don't stress the second syllable in hysterical?

I do. But I've never used "an" before hysterical, never heard anyone say it, or never read it in print. It's usually like this:

"That was a hysterical chapter in her life."

You also very likely pronounce the H. Not everybody does.

I do, but for the very good reason that I was taught that way and that's how it's pronounced in the dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hysterical

Hysteria or hysterical is pronounced with an H, not silent H. Historian may be pronounced 'is-TOR-ian, like honest is pronounced 'ON-est. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that H is followed immediately by a consonant, in this case, a "y." So it would be weird to say or read 'ysteria or 'ysterical.

 

[Jadzia]

I've never seen it spelled that way.

we ave'em in umberside.

 

[RoJoHen]

I do. But I've never used "an" before hysterical, never heard anyone say it, or never read it in print. It's usually like this:

"That was a hysterical chapter in her life."

You also very likely pronounce the H. Not everybody does.

I do, but for the very good reason that I was taught that way and that's how it's pronounced in the dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hysterical

Hysteria or hysterical is pronounced with an H, not silent H. Historian may be pronounced 'is-TOR-ian, like honest is pronounced 'ON-est. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that H is followed immediately by a consonant, in this case, a "y." So it would be weird to say or read 'ysteria or 'ysterical.

Right, but Y is a vowel in this instance.

"A, E, I, O, U...and sometimes Y."

 

[Gryffindorian]

You also very likely pronounce the H. Not everybody does.

I do, but for the very good reason that I was taught that way and that's how it's pronounced in the dictionary.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hysterical

Hysteria or hysterical is pronounced with an H, not silent H. Historian may be pronounced 'is-TOR-ian, like honest is pronounced 'ON-est. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that H is followed immediately by a consonant, in this case, a "y." So it would be weird to say or read 'ysteria or 'ysterical.

Right, but Y is a vowel in this instance.

"A, E, I, O, U...and sometimes Y."

I can acknowledge the regional differences, esp. if it's British English; however, there are only a number of English words pronounced with an initial silent H, as in honor, honorary, honest, hour, hourly. To me, it just seems pretentious for Americans to drop the initial H where it shouldn't be. In the U.S., people normally don't say 'Ouston, TX; 'Avana, GA; 'Ouse of Representatives; 'Oward 'Ughes; Arm & 'Ammer; 'Onolulu, 'Awaii, etc. Maybe they do that in the U.K. or some other parts of the world, but not around here. In Spanish, yes, all H's are silent, as in hola, ahora, hombre.

I would check an English dictionary first before I started dropping the initial H and using "an."

 

[RoJoHen]

So what's the problem? I'm not arguing that Americans should say it one way or another. I'm just pointing out that people with different accents may drop the H in certain words.

 

[Yoda]

That's the problem with your theory of language: you assume that it has timeless, unchanging rules which people must follow; and that anything else is a mistake.

I admitted that things fall into accepted usage. But "an historic" is the kind of scourge that, in a just world, would be defeated at the gates.

But just as the "rules" of language aren't completely rigid, they're also not completely fluid. You let people do whatever they want to the language and you get shit like Ebonics.

 

[Gryffindorian]

So what's the problem? I'm not arguing that Americans should say it one way or another. I'm just pointing out that people with different accents may drop the H in certain words.

I was originally replying to Goliath's post when he mentioned "An hysterical ..." and pointed out that's not how I see it being used in the U.S., which was my original point. Of course, there'll be regional differences in Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, American English, and British English.

 

[captcalhoun]

a historic, a historian.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Plus, there's the stereotypical northern English accent that drops it always . . .

We Yanks generally associate the dropped H with the London Cockney accent. "Just you wait, 'Enry "Iggins!"

. . . Thou wouldst know this, if thou wouldst merely take a moment to recall that English has lost an entire verb form in the past four hundred years: the second-person singular "thou." If thou'rt going to insist upon thy timeless and unchanging rules, and dismiss all innovations as vulgar errors, then thou hadst better brush up on thy second-person singulars: if thou dost not, thou wilt leave thyself open to charges of inconsistency and hypocrisy. Thou pharisaical rump-fed pumpion.

Goldarn it, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty-dollar whore!

 

[RJDiogenes]

Since "h" isn't a vowel, I generally use "a," so I'd say "a historic vote." If the "h" is silent, such as in "honest" or "hour" or whatever, I'd use "an."

I think one of the first times I got yelled at in Junior High was when I asked the teacher who "Anne Historian" was.

Isn't she pals with Jeannie Ology?

Nice. She'll be the sidekick when I write my "Anne Historian" stories.

Thou pharisaical rump-fed pumpion.

Thou'rt warned for thou has spake a flaming retort. Send thine comments to ye olde PM.

Fear not. I jest.

 

[Goliath]

Zounds! 'Twas a narrow escape, forsooth.