an historic; an hotel

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

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Noticed this in the news a lot these days... what's up with it?

How many of us use "an historic event" vs "a historic event".

How far do you take it? An holocaust? An hereditary disease?

Is it just a fad? Why are newsreaders switching to an+h when for years they spoke normally?
 
iirc it's the correct way of using 'an' depending on the word it's used in conjunction with.

But my english a level was yonks ago...
 
Depends on whether the h is pronounced or not.

However, words like horrific and historic used to be pronounced 'istoric and 'orrific, therefore an historic xx has stayed although a historic would be more appropriate these days.
 
'An' comes before a vowel for the most part I believe. As MJT said, it depends how you say words like 'Historic' as to whether you say the 'H' or not.
 
"an" should only be used before a pronounced vowel sound (not just a vowel)...

e.g.

A Hotel
A Horrific
An Egg
An Apple

But also...

An FTP site (FTP pronounced with a vowel sound at the beginning..."EF TEE PEE"
An HTPC
 
mjt said:
Depends on whether the h is pronounced or not.

However, words like horrific and historic used to be pronounced 'istoric and 'orrific, therefore an historic xx has stayed although a historic would be more appropriate these days.
Click to expand...

Yeah I never realised this before today. Old British pronunciation often drops the 'h' whereas it's American English that always pronounces the 'h'.

Well, I for one prefer the US sound and I'm glad it replaced our traditional "silent h" sound.

But now that we've all switched to using American English, "an historic" seems to be completely redundant.
 
neodude said:
"an" should only be used before a pronounced vowel sound (not just a vowel)...

e.g.

A Hotel
A Horrific
An Egg
An Apple

But also...

An FTP site (FTP pronounced with a vowel sound at the beginning..."EF TEE PEE"
An HTPC
Click to expand...

See also:

A unicorn
A uniform
 
the problem arises, when english is not spoken properly, example with phonics

ahh historic event - wrong, forcing the 'an' historic .....

ay historic event - correct, forcing the split between 'a' and 'historic'

I blame the bloody foreigners :p


now back to the 16 year tennis twins in the youtube thread.......... great technik
 
Mat said:
See also:

A unicorn
A uniform
Click to expand...

That's because unicorn and uniform have a "hard" pronunciation rather than a soft one. You say "yoonicorn", not "oonicorn". If it *was* "oonicorn" you'd have "an oonicorn" as in "oi Marjorie, we've gorr'an oonicorn in arr field!". You'd also need a flat cap, a tweed jacket and a shotgun.

Same as something like europe. A european country, not an european country.

If it starts "oo, er, ah, ee" or something similar, it's (an), if not, it's (a).
 
A lot of words that are preceeded with 'an' actually used to be 'a n?'. For example, Today we say 'an orange' but originally they were called noranges so it was 'a norange' and as speech moves forwards this became an orange.

I'm not sure if all 'an' words are due to that though.
 
estebanrey said:
A lot of words that are preceeded with 'an' actually used to be 'a n?'. For example, Today we say 'an orange' but originally they were called noranges so it was 'a norange' and as speech moves forwards this became an orange.

I'm not sure if all 'an' words are due to that though.
Click to expand...

PMSL, where on earth do you come up with guff like that? :p
 
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