Matt Jones

before you play two notes learn how to play one note - and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it - Mark Hollis

A Historic Post

Ashley Frieze has well documented is annoyance towards missing or mis-placed apostrophes with the Apostrophell page (‘Foxed’ being my favourite as the offending Taxi company is just round the corner from me). While I’m nowhere near as adept at spotting such apostrophe abuse and I’m able to witness it without being forced to write a letter, there is one grammatical error that, when I see it, makes me seethe. Some would argue that it’s acceptable and isn’t a grammatical error at all, but for me it’s all wrong:

I saw it twice yesterday; leafing through a copy of Steve Jones’ book Almost Like a Whale in Waterstones and in a BBC News Online article that I can’t remember the address of.

The ‘h’ in ‘history’ is aspirated which means that it should be written ‘a historic’. Conversely, in words such as ‘hour’ and ‘honour’, the ‘h’ isn’t sounded, hence ‘an hour’ and ‘an honour’.

I decided to use Google find out how widespread the use of ‘an historic’ is in two popular news sites:

Site Query No. of Results
BBC News Online a historic 1780
BBC News Online an historic 2400
CNN.com a historic 2350
CNN.com an historic 895

It appears that British journalists prefer ‘an historic’ and their American counterparts prefer ‘a historic’. So why the confusion? Why does ‘an historic’ sound right to people’s ears? Well, as I have discovered, in Old English, the ‘h’ in ‘historic’ was often not sounded so people said ‘an ‘istoric’ and it sounded correct.

So, it seems that vestiges of this way of speaking exist in our language and how you choose to say ‘historic’ dictates whether it should be preceded by an ‘an’ or an ‘a’. For the written word however, where the rules of the English language should be properly applied, there is no excuse for ‘an historic’.

13 Responses to “A Historic Post”

  1. 1:43 pm on 19 October 2003 :::

    Jack Says:

    I couldn’t agree less.

    I’m strictly in the ‘an historic’ camp. Heck, I even insist on ‘an hotel.’ Sadly, you often have to fight to get this in print nowadays, since modern sub-editors tend to know precisely fuck all about English usage. (Just last week I had to spend ten minutes assuring one that ‘persiflage’ is a real word. Shocking!)

    Of course, you’re right that it doesn’t make sense, now that our pronunciation of these words has changed, but I suspect that’s why I’m so fond of the formula – at the risk of ending up in the web equivalent of Pseud’s Corner, every time one tells another of a stay in an hotel, and an historic one at that, a wonderful little link is made with the past. That’s worth the funny looks, I think.

    Also, I urge everyone to pronounce ‘trait’ with a silent last ‘t.’ And if you confuse ‘imply’ with ‘infer,’ then I _hate_ you. Seriously.

  2. 5:11 pm on 19 October 2003 :::

    Lee Noble Says:

    I can’t stand the an h… thing either. It’s the one thing that gets my goat. It sounds awful and contrived when spoken with the aitch.
    That’s an odd thing. Why is aitch (for that is how ‘h’ is spelt) the only letter of the alphabet to have a spelling in the dictionary?
    The most abhorrent misuse though has to be not pronouncing the aitch in herb (you know who you are….Americans).
    The English language is full of stupid things like this. The rules should be re-written. I don’t know what the end of this particular aid to memory is supposed to be, so I made up my own ending:

    ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’. Oh and ‘h’, and sometimes ‘y’ and ‘l’ and probably a few others too. There are no shortcuts, you just have to know.

    Snappy isn’t it?

  3. 6:04 pm on 19 October 2003 :::

    Adrian Says:

    And despite the fact that “aitch” is in the dictionary, so many people insist on pronouncing it “haitch”. Not an illogical assumption, but still wrong.

    “An historic” doesn’t bother me, for some reason, but “an hotel” does. My mother spent years bringing me up proper, so I wouldn’t feel the need to ‘ang my ‘at on the ‘ook, so why should posh southerners get away with ‘otel? ;-)

  4. 8:24 pm on 19 October 2003 :::

    Kev Says:

    Am I being overly naive in assuming that all of these inconsistencies are an result of English being an utter mish-mash of all sorts of other languages and cultures? Better for it, in my opinion. And even though I have my own pet peeves (people who write "could care less" when they clearly mean "couldn’t care less", for instance, drive me mad) I also believe that language can’t and shouldn’t be static. Or, to put it another way, definitions evolve whether you like it or not. That’s partly why dictionary’s need updated revisions. Perhaps as long as the sense is communicated it shouldn’t be such a big deal, at least for relatively casual purposes.

  5. 8:46 pm on 19 October 2003 :::

    Kev Says:

    Ungh. Rest assured that me writing "an result" was nothing more than a horrific mistake. Huge apologies.

  6. 8:56 pm on 19 October 2003 :::

    natis Says:

    I thought it was more or less that ‘a’ is used when words sounded like they started with a constanant and ‘an’ was used in front of words that started with or “sounded” like they started with a vowel, i.e. half AN hour since the H is silent in hour.

    And speaking of silent H and Lee Nobel’s comment about how us Americans don’t pronounce the H in herb, I do agree with Eddie Izzard when he best said it “it’s pronounced herb because there is a fu(&ing H in it”.

  7. 2:07 pm on 20 October 2003 :::

    Tim Says:

    Um, hotel can be pronounced “otel” because it’s a French word with a silent aitch…

  8. 2:10 pm on 20 October 2003 :::

    Jack Says:

    On a related note – John Humphrys has a good rant in the Guardian about some common errors, hideous management-speak, etc.

  9. 4:21 pm on 20 October 2003 :::

    Lee Phillips Says:

    kev: _”people who write “could care less” when they clearly mean “couldn?t care less”, for instance, drive me mad”_

    I’ve been hearing this since I was a kid on the Lower East Side, and it always seemed to fit in with other ironic Yiddish-derived or -flavored expressions; I’ve always assumed it was intentional, and perhaps partly unconscious, irony.

    But why get worked up over “an historic” when so many worse manglings of English (if this even is one) are becoming more common by the day? My pet peeves of the moment include the utter confusion by so many when confronted with the need to use any form of subjunctive: “If I would have remembered my umbrella, I would not be wet” – horrible! – and the misuse of the words “presently”, “enormity”, “literally”, etc., etc.

  10. 4:32 pm on 20 October 2003 :::

    natis Says:

    To be honest, I’m surprised that more people are not taking offense to how much top 40 Hip-Hop is changing the English language. ‘Alright’ has become ‘aw-eye-t’, ‘they are fine’ turned into ‘they is fine’ or worse ‘they be fine’. I find these examples to be more concerning than ‘an hotel’ vs. ‘a hotel’.

    And for even more offensive use of the English language, there is always the fun and amusing example of our unbeloved idiotic President

  11. 5:33 pm on 20 October 2003 :::

    Matt Says:

    Thanks for everyone’s input. I’ve realised that I should be thankful for the elegant mish-mash that is the English language and I should really spend more time learning about it!

  12. 10:37 pm on 20 October 2003 :::

    Richard Hyett Says:

    To be honest,
    I myself personally think that,
    at the end of the day,
    the real issue is,
    these are much over used phrases.

    The overuse of acronyms, the deliberate use of language to obscure rather than clarify is surely more important than the fact that many of us did not pay attention during English lessons, or came from homes where English was not talked proper.

  13. 9:54 pm on 5 November 2003 :::

    Daveed Says:

    Let’s admit , we have the French to thank for these silly silent aitches. At least we Yanks got rid of “centre” and “theatre” long, long ago…

    A further Internet search on a/an historic also reveals that other journalism sites (including the over-vaunted New York Times) use both.

    I prefer “an historic” when modifying an event or a happening because it seems to have the right effect on abstract nouns. But I wouldn’t write “an historic house” or “an historic film.”

    Now, can anyone verify this: Does the King of Swamp Castle say, “This is supposed to be a happy occasion” or “an ‘appy occasion”?

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