A Historic vs. An Historic

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello! Hi, my name is Casey. I’m from Zionsville, Indiana. How are you?

Super, Casey. You sound excited.

I’m told I’m naturally caffeinated.

That’s great!

Yeah. So, I had a question. Of course, there was probably maybe five minutes where pundits weren’t talking on television within the last month to year, and I kept hearing a phrase or a sentence used over and over again, both ways. And I want to know which one is right.

I’ve heard people say that this is a historic event or that it is an historic event, a-n. I just wanted to know which one was correct, because if you said another H word, like hyper, to say that she is a hyper person, I would assume that that would be correct, as opposed to she is an hyper person.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You’re exactly right, Casey.

Yay!

Okay, so in speeches and pundits and all of those people, they’ve been saying A-N. So it’s just kind of been a little bit more verbally comfortable, I guess, to say A-N.

Well, it’s interesting, isn’t it?

It doesn’t sound comfortable to me.

It sounds kind of awkward to say an-historical.

That’s what I thought.

Yeah, or an-historic. I think it sounds a little bit pretentious. And you’re right that that’s the traditional rule. You wouldn’t say, my dad used to be an hippie, right? Or I’m going to throw an hissy fit over this point of grammar. You wouldn’t say that.

And the same pattern applies here. I don’t know what it is about the word historic that makes people just want to throw that rule out the window. What do you guys think?

There’s been a lot of bad advice given it. You can actually find in the lesser grade of grammar manuals and usage manuals, people recommending that you say an historic or an historical, even though it is patently and completely wrong.

When John McCain gave his concession speech, he was wrong.

That’s what I thought.

Yeah, now you will hear an historic more often across the pond in Britain, but that’s because a lot of times you don’t hear the beginning H, right? But that’s the key. If you’re not pronouncing the H, fine. Go ahead and say A-N. If you are pronouncing the H, it should only be A.

Okay.

That’s the rule. And the difficulty here is that sometimes we have a tendency in the United States to pronounce the H more often. But we do swallow it in the same way that the Brits do on occasion. And so you kind of have to listen carefully. Are they saying the H or are they not?

An historic event, they’re swallowing the H.

An historic event.

They are not swallowing the H. But in any case, you’re right. It’s A and then the word historic.

All right.

Well, that solves it. Thank you both very much.

You’re welcome.

Thanks for calling, Casey. Have a great day.

All right.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

I think we should go on an humanitarian mission to eradicate this usage.

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