I keep hearing people on the news talking about “an historic†election instead of “a historic†election, and it sounds a little strange to me (I was watching the election coverage on Comedy Central a while ago, and Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert had a little bit of fun with this). I imagine that you could probably make a case for either (â€an historic†would make a little more sense to me if the “h†in historic were aspirated a little bit); anyone here have an opinion about which it should be?
Some might consider this a strange thing to focus on during such a/an historic election, but that's the type of thing us word nerds pay attention to.
I completely agree: "an historic" is perfectly fine if you don't aspirate the h, but as ear shattering as "an horse" if you do.
I cringed during John McCains otherwise very nice speech last night when there was "an historic" moment. Admittedly, it sounded foreign on his lips and I'm sure he was coached to say it by some well-meaning person.
This ranks up there with using whom incorrectly for me. Seems like a misguided attempt to make speech sound more formal.
I cannot believe how many times I heard this mistake in the past two days. Charlie Gibson said it repeatedly, as did countless other pundits and journalists. Only once did I hear the phrase used correctly out of about a dozen chances. Spread the word!
Seems like a misguided attempt to make speech sound more formal.
Exactly. Hyper-correction in a very blatant form.