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I hate it when people say 'an' and pronounce the h hard too, it makes no sense and sounds so bad. What about you?
| An and I don't pronounce the h in historic. | 14 | |
| An and I do pronounce the h in historic. | 11 | |
| A and I don't pronounce the h in historic. | 3 | |
| A and I do pronounce the h in historic. | 66 |
'An' makes sense when the 'n' is a consonant to divide two vowel sounds. If you pronounce the 'h' it makes the 'n' in 'an' redundant, and makes the sentence awkward to pronounce.
If, however, you don't pronounce the 'h', it makes sense to use 'an'. But who says 'istory'? Unless you're pretending to be French speaking English.
Bonjour! Ça va? J'adore an 'istory lesson or deux! It izzz ze most intorestong thang in ma 'umble opinion!
It is also somewhat common that a vowel, consonant , vowel, causes the first vowel to have its "true" sound.
Frozen.
Hero.
Used.
These.
Adult.
Music.
Not all words conform to this, but its pretty surprising to see how many do. Word geeks rejoice! =3
I'm from Australia, and a lot of people here say "an historic", pronouncing the "h". I don't understand this, since I was taught from an early age that "an" should only be used before words beginning with a vowel sound.
You say "an" when the following word starts with a vowel, and "a" if it starts with a consonant. I pronounce the "h", too.
I stumble over my words to change them around and avoid having to say it cos either sound wrong to me.
Incidentally, anyone know if it is it 'an user' or 'a user' as the u has the 'you' sound rather than 'uh' or 'oo'. I'm too lazy and tired to google :-S
For a start you should pronounce the H so i would say that 'a' would be the correct choice.
Where I come from, it's part of the dialect/accent (I don't know which it is) but we don't pronounce "H" ever.
It's just how we talk as the people from the area we live in, it's not deliberate.
None of the above. The glottal stop between an and historic (with a strong H sound) doesn't flow nicely. My dialect drops haitches, though, so I'd say it as "anistoric".
I have heard people say that: "an Historic", pronouncing the H. It makes me cringe. I don't understand the AN usage in front of an H, but I see and hear it all the time.
I'm from America, and I've never met anyone who didn't say 'a historic' and pronounce the 'h.' It's just how almost all of us do it here.
That's weird because I've only ever heard 'an historic' on American TV :S
I actually wrote this poll because I heard the guy on Mythbusters once again say 'an Historic'. The people on the news do it too. It seems like anyone trying to sound extra smart says it. In real life, it's less common, but then again I don't hang out with too many pretentious motherfuckers.
I think (or I would hope) that they say it as a joke or just being overly important on purpose. I've heard it often lately.
I think it is like people now saying "the internets". They're making fun or enjoying how someone famous (George W. Bush) said it.
I'm going to use it often just to be silly and join in.