I agree with Bremen. I would never say "a historic."

NewOldGuy, would you say "a heir to the throne"? If not, you're essentially agreeing with Bremen (i.e. how it's pronounced, not how it's written). If you do say "a heir," you're pretty much alone in that.

waiter, there's an hair in my soup.

heir does not equal hair

Perceptive. And that's Bremen's point. It's pronunciation that counts. Most educated people would say "an historic."

I never said anything about how a word is written and my very first post mentioned the pronunciation specifically ("hard H"). He brought that obvious and unspoken point up himself. My only point was that "an historic" is nonstandard English, both spoken AND written. And the word "heir" does not use a hard H, it has a silent H, and thus takes a different article.

I'm aware of the fairly common usage of "an historic" and imo it's still incorrect. Virtually every style guide and dictionary recommends "a historic", so I'm not alone.

Another word that takes "an" for the article, is "honest" for the same reason as "heir. Because the H is silent. The H is not silent in the word "historic".

Try saying "this city is istoric Gettysburg" without overly enunciating it and sounding like English is not your first language.

The H in "historic" is always pronounced in standard English and American. In some dialects they are silent, so you would say "an historic" for those dialects. That is not the standard pronunciation though, but a regional pronunciation.

Most educated people would say "an historic." is objectively wrong no matter what commonly accepted definition of educated you are using.

Historic by itself, say the h. An historic, elide the h. Simple.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4994862

The use of "an historic" is in fact, not technically incorrect but is now considered archaic and pedantic.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/...historic-event

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.

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

The court made a historic decision last week.


Historic by itself, say the h. A historic, say the h. Simple.

To be fair, though, some people do use "an historic", for example

http://www.angelfire.com/trek/gigisl...missioned.html

He looked at T'Pol, who looked back steadily. "It was more than an historic ship, it was a community, a family, and that's what I'm going to miss." It was what he had missed every day for the last twenty-seven years, four months and eighteen days. When Jon realized the audience was waiting for him to continue, he added: "Thank you," and sat down, to renewed applause.

http://www.writing.com/main/view_ite...ay-in-football

An historic day in football

That isn't in dispute. The correctness of that pronunciation in modern American English is the issue.

There's also no argument about using "an" before any word which you pronounce as beginning with a vowel sound. That's a well-accepted rule. The problem is that "history" and "historic" always begin with a consonant sound. Even as spoken by those who then decide to drop the "h" when they put an article before it in a sentence. The word should not conveniently change to suit their choice of article. It works the other way around.

Well, something touched a nerve with someone. Maybe we can also discuss pronouncing the t in often and gift.

That's what a dog said

Perfectly stated.

Just to continue beating the dead horse that's been beaten previously in this thread: Since the accent isn't on the first syllable, isn't the H in historic considered something between a hard H and a silent one, that makes "an" a viable option?

I'm torn on what to use myself; when I say "a historic" it feels like there's an extra little fraction of breath I have to take to over-pronounce the H, which goes away using "an".

You can go ahead and be torn, but, as has been explained, if you go with "an historic" (and you don't have an unusual accent) you'll be up against just about every authority and style guide. You'll also sound like an ass.

I'm not really arguing about whether I'll be flying in the face of convention or sounding weird, I'm just wondering about the actual merits of using "an" there as it applies to fluid speech.

You do agree that it's a different type of H based on the stressing of the syllables? For example I'd never expect anyone to say "I'm reading an history of the United States", but if the word were pronounced his-TOR-y there might be a case for it.

We're once again in an Old World / New World debate. Speakers in England -- especially older and upper class speakers (who therefore traditionally defined correct style) -- have often dropped, elided, or not strongly sounded the leading H in unstressed syllables, and therefore use "an" before words like "historic"--but not for "history." When I came to Canada as a young man I frequently saw "an historic" in print, because of the pervasive UK influence. I usually changed it in copy I was editing: it sounded fussy to me, rather than simply wrong. I see it much less in Canadian texts these days because in most small matters of style, Canada now follows the US. (Perhaps it's only the "colour" / "colour" distinction that remains generally distinctive.)

Disagree. But to each his own. Ass is in the ear of the beholder. I will always say "an historic occasion" rather than "a historic occasion", eliding the "h" as was pointed out by an astute observer itt. The latter choice has a glottal stop feel to it and it doesn't roll off the tongue.

What about heroic? Starts with h, stress on the 2nd syllable.

It was a/an heroic victory.

A heroic, of course. So how is this any different? Or would some of you really say an heroic?

Unless I was ordering a sandwich (say, how does everyone pronounce that one?), yes, believe it or don't.

Subjectively it's fine to prefer 'an historic'. According to all style guides and modern usage, though, it's objectively recommended to say 'a historic'. It's sort of like being entitled to having your own opinions but not being entitled to your own facts. Like, it's fine to say that you personally prefer the taste of red wine that has been boiled for an hour and mixed with sprite, compared with wine that has been properly decanted. But you can't say "this is the correct way to drink wine."

Don't tell me how to drink wine, mo'fo.

From a discussion on http://engli******ackexchange.com/que...h-the-letter-h
On Amazon.Com: Ariella: An heroic tale.

Etc.

Never hesitate to Google before posting ...

"An hotel" LOL

Yep, I think that's case closed there.

Must be a Cockney accent. I think they drop all leading consonants. Scots drop a lot of them too.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph...thing=2&share=

ngram viewer is swell