More On "an Historic"

[Brant Gardner]

I suspect that you are dealing with issues of spoken language rather than written. There is a big difference in the way one pronounces the article followed by history than by historic. The difference is in the stress. When the stress is on the first syllable, the /h/ becomes more pronounced--literally. Therefore it is heard and easily preceded by /a/. When we have the accent on the second syllable /hisTORic/, the movement to the stress on the second syllable relaxes the pronunciation of the /h/ and many speakers to the point where it disappears. The word sounds like /isTORic/ and therefore sounds as though it should have /an/ because that is what should precede a vowel.

 

When we write the way we speak, it shows up for those whose dialect diminishes the /h/ in the non-stressed first syllable.

[Bernard Gui]

I vote that we also strike "supernal" from the list of approved conference verbiage.

Indeed. 

 

I find it sounds better if it follows "it is" or its contraction.

It's an historic day here as......

It is an historic day here as.....

I find it flows from the tongue easier in that specific use. In other uses like:

We find ourselves at an historic event

It sounds awful there.

Doesn't "an" belong to "event" and not to "historic?" As in we find ourselves at an event? When Mrs. Aiello taught us how to diagram sentences in 6th grade at Central Elementary School, the an would be attached to event.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Bernard Gui

[Scott Lloyd]

I suspect that you are dealing with issues of spoken language rather than written. There is a big difference in the way one pronounces the article followed by history than by historic. The difference is in the stress. When the stress is on the first syllable, the /h/ becomes more pronounced--literally. Therefore it is heard and easily preceded by /a/. When we have the accent on the second syllable /hisTORic/, the movement to the stress on the second syllable relaxes the pronunciation of the /h/ and many speakers to the point where it disappears. The word sounds like /isTORic/ and therefore sounds as though it should have /an/ because that is what should precede a vowel.

 

When we write the way we speak, it shows up for those whose dialect diminishes the /h/ in the non-stressed first syllable.

The same could be said about a word such as hotel: it also has the stress on the second syllable. But apart from the linguistic culture of London's East End, I'm hard pressed to think of any dialects in which the h is routinely dropped in the pronunciation of hotel and the indefinite article an used before it. Nor, for that matter, can I think of one where the h is routinely dropped from historic.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[3DOP]

"An historic" is pronounced the same way as an urricane, which ardly ever appens.