4 ms·

So is it "a historic" or "an historic"? I've heard Stephen Colbert use "an historic" with a non-silent H.

by hiccuphippo 15d ago

Dwedit 15d ago
Comedians often make jokes.
deleted 15d ago
[deleted]
n4r9 15d ago
Yes, this is an exception to the rule in British English, although possibly old-fashioned and becoming obsolete. Some British people put "an" before any word starting with "h" and longer than three syllables. EDIT I'm wrong here - I don't think anyone ever says "an Halloween celebration" for example. But I was sure there were other "h" counterexamples than historic.
- n4r9 14d ago
  I asked Claude and it showed me various examples of other words that may well be preceded with "an", such as heroic, habitual, and hereditary. It's to do with how strongly the "h" is pronounced.
IshKebab 15d ago
This is a common overcorrection. It's 100% "a historic" if you're pronouncing the "h" (which everyone does). People who say "an historic" are wrong - they're imagining there's some exception that there isn't. You can easily tell they're wrong because who says "an history lesson"?
- kzrdude 15d ago
  "a history lesson" and "an historic event" have different stress in the history area (or at least they can have, depending on the phrase context), and I think that explains it. Saying "a historic event" requires you to pause and stress the start of historic (a + glottal stop + "his" + ...). It's a natural phrasing pattern to have the initial part of historic unstressed, and then the h is effectively dropped even if you're not speaking an h-dropping dialect; this way "an historic event" follows as correct. We simplify a lot of sounds in unstressed parts of words, but because we know and "see" the spelling, our brains can keep the illusion of the whole word going for us.
  - IshKebab 15d ago
    Nope. A/an doesn't depend on where the stress in a word is.
- jeroenhd 15d ago
  > because who says "an history lesson"? People speaking dialects that don't pronounce the "h" in "history". Which used to be a lot more common when this rule was written down. I've heard several English dialects that pronounce "historian" like "istorian", and who would say "a istorian"? English is full of obscure rules that were written down ages ago, often because one particular guy wrote down his personal preference and others accepted it as fact ("less" vs "fewer", for instance). English speakers still can't agree whether the h in "herb" is pronounced or not. I don't see why anyone would be surprised that other words beginning with h are also subject to debate.
  - IshKebab 15d ago
    I said: > if you're pronouncing the "h" (which everyone does). You can say "an 'istoric", but that's not what we're talking about. The overcorrection is "an historic". That also isn't specific to "historic", for example you can say "an 'ouse" but literally nobody says "an house".
    - pessimizer 14d ago
      > (which everyone does) I don't think this is true. I'm pretty sure I don't ever pronounce the h in historical if I'm coming into it from "an." "Anistorical." The "i" takes care of the "h." Also "a history" becomes "[ə:]istory" (but definitely not "an history") and "the historical" becomes "th[ə]istorical." Definitely no "h." It gets dropped in other situations, too. "Speaking of wh[ə]distoricallyappened..." I can't be sure when I don't drop it, other than when the word is bare. Fairly boring black middle-class midwestern accent.
KaiserPro 15d ago
for ESL people, its both. For english people, as in actual english not from the UK, its a historic, unless its for emphasis. There is/are some religious overtones, that are infused into this. Catholics used to (or still do) say "hay-tch" for h, where as non-Catholic would say "ay-tch". However that distinction is not so acute in england(unless you're in/near liverpool), but it might be in scotland and its certainly there in NI
- roryirvine 15d ago
  It's interesting in NI because haitch-vs-aitch is so much more obvious than any of the other common shibboleths that it's become almost a comically exaggerated thing - something that people feel free to comment on or even joke about in a way that they wouldn't about anything else. (Derry vs Londonderry might beat it for sheer obviousness, except for the fact that no-one, even the most hardened Unionist, actually calls it Londonderry in everyday speech unless they're making a point... or work for the BBC) But, in reality, I think it originally comes from Hiberno-English vs Mid Ulster English, the two main dialects of English spoken in Ireland, rather than anything to do with religion. The association with religion came with the post-famine wave of emigration to Britain, and it was only after that that it began to filter back to Ireland. (That's the story I was told at school, anyway...)
nmeofthestate 15d ago
A related quirk is English people saying "an hotel" (pronounced an otel). It's a subset, and specifically more popular with English speakers as opposed to non-English British. Also, someone else claimed the English don't say "an historic" - incorrect. Again it's not universal.
paulnpace 15d ago
The last time I went down this rabbit hole I concluded these are all correct with identical meaning in U.S. English: a historic a historical an historic an historical

So is it "a historic" or "an historic"? I've heard Stephen Colbert use "an historic" with a non-silent H.

Dwedit 15d ago

Comedians often make jokes.

deleted 15d ago

[deleted]

n4r9 15d ago

Yes, this is an exception to the rule in British English, although possibly old-fashioned and becoming obsolete. Some British people put "an" before any word starting with "h" and longer than three syllables. EDIT I'm wrong here - I don't think anyone ever says "an Halloween celebration" for example. But I was sure there were other "h" counterexamples than historic.

n4r9 14d ago
I asked Claude and it showed me various examples of other words that may well be preceded with "an", such as heroic, habitual, and hereditary. It's to do with how strongly the "h" is pronounced.

IshKebab 15d ago

This is a common overcorrection. It's 100% "a historic" if you're pronouncing the "h" (which everyone does). People who say "an historic" are wrong - they're imagining there's some exception that there isn't. You can easily tell they're wrong because who says "an history lesson"?

kzrdude 15d ago
"a history lesson" and "an historic event" have different stress in the history area (or at least they can have, depending on the phrase context), and I think that explains it. Saying "a historic event" requires you to pause and stress the start of historic (a + glottal stop + "his" + ...). It's a natural phrasing pattern to have the initial part of historic unstressed, and then the h is effectively dropped even if you're not speaking an h-dropping dialect; this way "an historic event" follows as correct. We simplify a lot of sounds in unstressed parts of words, but because we know and "see" the spelling, our brains can keep the illusion of the whole word going for us.
- IshKebab 15d ago
  Nope. A/an doesn't depend on where the stress in a word is.
jeroenhd 15d ago
> because who says "an history lesson"? People speaking dialects that don't pronounce the "h" in "history". Which used to be a lot more common when this rule was written down. I've heard several English dialects that pronounce "historian" like "istorian", and who would say "a istorian"? English is full of obscure rules that were written down ages ago, often because one particular guy wrote down his personal preference and others accepted it as fact ("less" vs "fewer", for instance). English speakers still can't agree whether the h in "herb" is pronounced or not. I don't see why anyone would be surprised that other words beginning with h are also subject to debate.
- IshKebab 15d ago
  I said: > if you're pronouncing the "h" (which everyone does). You can say "an 'istoric", but that's not what we're talking about. The overcorrection is "an historic". That also isn't specific to "historic", for example you can say "an 'ouse" but literally nobody says "an house".
  - pessimizer 14d ago
    > (which everyone does) I don't think this is true. I'm pretty sure I don't ever pronounce the h in historical if I'm coming into it from "an." "Anistorical." The "i" takes care of the "h." Also "a history" becomes "[ə:]istory" (but definitely not "an history") and "the historical" becomes "th[ə]istorical." Definitely no "h." It gets dropped in other situations, too. "Speaking of wh[ə]distoricallyappened..." I can't be sure when I don't drop it, other than when the word is bare. Fairly boring black middle-class midwestern accent.

KaiserPro 15d ago

for ESL people, its both. For english people, as in actual english not from the UK, its a historic, unless its for emphasis. There is/are some religious overtones, that are infused into this. Catholics used to (or still do) say "hay-tch" for h, where as non-Catholic would say "ay-tch". However that distinction is not so acute in england(unless you're in/near liverpool), but it might be in scotland and its certainly there in NI

roryirvine 15d ago
It's interesting in NI because haitch-vs-aitch is so much more obvious than any of the other common shibboleths that it's become almost a comically exaggerated thing - something that people feel free to comment on or even joke about in a way that they wouldn't about anything else. (Derry vs Londonderry might beat it for sheer obviousness, except for the fact that no-one, even the most hardened Unionist, actually calls it Londonderry in everyday speech unless they're making a point... or work for the BBC) But, in reality, I think it originally comes from Hiberno-English vs Mid Ulster English, the two main dialects of English spoken in Ireland, rather than anything to do with religion. The association with religion came with the post-famine wave of emigration to Britain, and it was only after that that it began to filter back to Ireland. (That's the story I was told at school, anyway...)

nmeofthestate 15d ago

A related quirk is English people saying "an hotel" (pronounced an otel). It's a subset, and specifically more popular with English speakers as opposed to non-English British. Also, someone else claimed the English don't say "an historic" - incorrect. Again it's not universal.

paulnpace 15d ago

The last time I went down this rabbit hole I concluded these are all correct with identical meaning in U.S. English: a historic a historical an historic an historical