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Pedants' corner

BBC News An historic ?

7 replies

GrinchAnInch · 25/02/2015 18:55

BBC News has a report on their web page where they say an historic ......, Shouldn't it be a historic ...... ? I always thought if the H was pronounced it was A and if it was a silent H then we use AN. Please enlighten an uneducated fool such as I. Grin

OP posts:
notsogoldenoldie · 25/02/2015 19:00

I think "an historic" is correct, but I can't remember why. I think it may be something to do with "historic" originating in Norman French or something and having a silent "h". Hence the need for "an" (grasps straws..)

FrancesNiadova · 08/03/2015 22:54

Yes Notso, like an hotel or an honour. It's from the time when an H was an aitch instead of a haiych Angry!

LoofahVanDross · 08/03/2015 22:55

An is correct.

quietlysuggests · 09/03/2015 08:24

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GrinchAnInch · 09/03/2015 09:13

Well thanks for clearing that up. Grin
I have just found this on the oxford dictionary page !

People often believe that they should use the indefinite article an in front of words like historic, horrific, or hotel. Are they right or wrong? Should you say ‘an historic event’ or ‘a historic event’?

An is the form of the indefinite article that is used before a spoken vowel sound: it doesn’t matter how the written word in question is actually spelled. So, we say ‘an honour’, ‘an hour’, or ‘an heir’, for example, because the initial letter ‘h’ in all three words is not actually pronounced. By contrast we say ‘a hair’ or ‘a horse’ because, in these cases, the ‘h’ is pronounced.

Let’s go back to those three words that tend to cause problems: historic, horrific, and hotel. If hotel was pronounced without its initial letter ‘h’ (i.e. as if it were spelled ‘otel’), then it would be correct to use an in front of it. The same is true of historic and horrific. If horrific was pronounced ‘orrific’ and historic was pronounced ‘istoric’ then it would be appropriate to refer to ‘an istoric occasion’ or ‘an orrific accident’. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people often did pronounce these words in this way.

Today, though, these three words are generally pronounced with a spoken ‘h’ at the beginning and so it’s now more logical to refer to ‘a hotel’, ‘a historic event’, or ‘a horrific accident’.

OP posts:
MirandaGoshawk · 09/03/2015 14:59

I agree with your final para (above) OP - it drives me nuts to see 'an hotel' written because I always think that if you read it aloud you'd pronounce it with a cod-French accent (an 'otel). For me it's a hotel, a historic event, etc. It's logical.

quietlysuggests · 09/03/2015 23:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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