First off, let me say how nice it is to see a thread like this not degenerate into yet another, “In my region of the country, we’re not ignorant enough to use word-X.”
I use the word /anyways/ in emails to my lover, a writer, to annoy her. That’s about it for me.
Anyways, it don’t matter.
Tom has it right. The ‘h’ gets dropped when it’s on the non-accented syllable. Try an experiment. Say “That’s hysterical.” Do you really aspirate the ‘h’? Or do you drop it? Now say “American Historical Society.” Again, do you really aspirate that ‘h’?
I have a feeling that many of the people who say they pronounce the ‘H’ in ‘historic’ may not be listening close enough to their pronunciation. I may be wrong, and I really don’t want to offend anyone, but I think you may not be paying attention to what your vocal tract is doing. (Please correct me, politely of course, if I am wrong.)
I have a Pacific Northwest accent, which means pretty close to the standard Television/Movie accent, which means, essentially, Standard American. I probably sound west-coasty to people from the mid-west and east coast, but I don’t really hear it too much myself. I don’t aspirate my ‘h’ when I say ‘an historic occasion’. I can’t be sure where I picked it up, it may be that I’ve never heard that phrase pronounced and have only read it. Whatever the case may be it flows naturally from my tongue. (incidentally, I am capable of saying either ‘an historic occasion’ or 'a historic occasion without wincing. I can hear three different levels: ‘uhhistoric occasion’ [quick and unemphatic], ‘an [h]istoric occasion’ [smooth, fairly emphatic], and ‘eh historic occasion’ [very emphatic but not so smooth].)
The fact of the matter is that the dialect I speak (and probably the dialect many of you 'dopers speak) tends to be lazy when it comes to pronouncing the ‘h’ in an unaccented position. This is natural, an ‘h’ (notice that I say an ‘h’) practically a vowel itself, so it takes extra work to make it distinctive when it is unaccented.
I believe that the word ‘an’ is older that the word ‘a’. This only a hypothesis based on what I know of the roots of english, but I think it is probably true. In German the indefinite article is ‘ein’. In Spanish it is ‘una’. French ‘un’. I’m sure in many other Indo-European languages the indefinite article tends follow this pattern. Assuming I am correct in saying that ‘an’ was the earlier version of the word, then the word ‘a’ is probably a lazy shorthand for ‘an’ which caused pronunciation difficulties when in front of a vowel sound.
The point of all this is that the a/an rules aren’t arbitrary or pointless, they make speech easier.
Condescension? tomndeb is not the one who decided that everybody who didn’t write it his way was getting it wrong while putting on airs.
No problem. I forgive you.
Attempting to judge another poster’s capabilities or motivation on such limited evidence does seem to indicate a bit more haste than is seemly, but suit yourself.
I agree with the general principal that people can suffer limits on their social progress through the misuse of language, so there does not appear to be a great deal to discuss on that subject. (Interestingly, I have a number of personal anecdotes in which the correct use of language has brought opprobrium down on an individual–it all depends on the audience.)
However, this is General Questions, not Great Debates: The discussion of usage (in which we may or may not reach agreement) is appropriate; a debate over whether a person’s social standing will be injured specifically by the use of “a” or “an” before words beginning with H which are not accented on the first syllable does not seem appropriate to this Forum or this thread.
Your attempt to characterize people who do not write the way that you do as “mistaken” (along with your unsubstantiated claim for their motivation) and your apparent belief that “a”/“an” before H is a matter of serious import indicates that you take this issue far more seriously than I. I have not told anyone else that they may not discuss it. I simply indicated that I was withdrawing.
I’ve been mumbling to myself ever since reading these. After mulling it over a long time, I still do really, honestly, and truely think that I aspirate that initial “h”. That, in fact, is the reason that it causes all this fuss – not because of a grammatical rule that I learned eons ago in elementary school (after all, I certainly don’t pronounced WHALE as “hwAl”, even though that’s what they taught me), but because “an historical” simply does not sound right to me. Evidently it bothers a few other people as well, judging from the uproar.
In common, unthinking use the initial “h” might be somewhat diminished, but it’s still definitely there – the word hasn’t dwindled to “'istorical” by any means. And placing “an” in front of it seems as wrong as saying “an wagon”.
A variable in all of this is the kind of speaking one is doing.
No question, if we’re conversing informally among friends, family or co-workers, we speak more rapidly and our articulation tends to lapse a bit. On the other hand, if we’re making a speech in front of people (at which time, by the way, we’re far more likely to be talking about historic occasions in the first place!), we’re going to articulate more carefully – and thus, I would think, many people would be more likely to aspirate the “h.”
We’ve had input from a lot of different quarters on the subject of how this phrase is pronounced in informal speech, and that’s a good thing. I’ll say again what I’ve said several times: if you tend to drop the “h” in informal speech, then I’m not going to have a problem with your using “an” before it.
But unless you’re doing dialogue, even so-called “informal” writing tends to adhere to the basics of pronunciation and grammar. I’ve yet to find a dictionary that gives “is-tor-ic” as an acceptable pronunciation. Which is why I’ll continue to hold that seeing “an historic” in American writing is wrong.
Thanks, I will.
And if you had said this when this sidebar to the main topic first came up, we might not be having this discussion now. But you didn’t. Instead, you made a flip remark that did not accurately reflect the content of my post.
Now you’re rewriting history. Please reproduce a post from me in which I ever initiated such a debate.
A review will show that you introduced an example of non-standard usage that had no connection with the “an historical” debate. I replied to this example of yours in a general way, again with no reference at all to the main topic of this thread. You then mated your unrelated reference to the main topic of “an historical” and intimated that I had done so, when I had done nothing of the kind.
Evidence?
Do I lose sleep over “an historical”? Of course not. I’m just someone who enjoys the subject of language. And there’s a long and honored tradition of fulminating grumpily against misuse and abuse of English. Hell, James Kilpatrick made a whole side career of it when he wasn’t busy butting heads with Shana Alexander.
My initial claim that few if any Americans say “an istorical” has been countered by several in this thread. I have acknowledged this and softened my position on the issue of this usage in informal speech.
However, I have presented several arguments as to why I believe “an historical” is incorrect in written American English. You have not presented a counter-argument. In fact, you haven’t even acknowledged this aspect of the discussion.
Still more evidence?
You’re right, my claims as to the motivation behind people saying and writing “an historical” are unsubstantiated. It would actually be impossible to substantiate such claims without a wide-ranging survey. This is why I wrote “I think what’s happening is…”
Meanwhile, I want to thank everyone else who, unlike tomndebb, has not yet reached the conclusion that their time is too valuable to participate in this discussion. Everyone’s contributions have been helpful and interesting.
I apologize if it came across that way to you. At the same time, I would point out that there’s a difference between aiming one’s slings and arrows at a general, undefined mass of people and a specific individual.
Let me again assure you that this is not a big deal – just something interesting to discuss (and apparently a lot of other people feel it is, too). That’s why we’re here, after all.
But if we can’t take a firm position on a subject and say why we feel the way we do, then why have these boards at all?
hmm?
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But if you can’t “drop the vernacular” and speak carefully and correctly in more formal situations, there’s a good chance you’ll one day face negative repercussions.
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You posted this in the context of a thread on the specific topic of “a”/“an” before H. I drew the same conclusion that deb* drew. My two initial attempts to defuse this with humor were met with anger. Your portrayal of me as condescending or “above” such discussions is misplaced. (I have, indeed, participated in the discussion of the actual topic.) I only note that the discussion that you initiated is a tangent that belongs in GD.
*(deb is no connection to the “deb” in tomndebb; I do not even know who deb is.)
But if you can’t “drop the vernacular” and speak carefully and correctly in more formal situations, there’s a good chance you’ll one day face negative repercussions.
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You posted this in the context of a thread on the specific topic of “a”/“an” before H.**
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Honest to God, I think you’ve got a couple of synapses that aren’t firing.
Here is your initial statement, the FIRST occasion upon which the conversation veered from the “an historic” topic:
My response – made immediately after quoting this statement of yours – was:
There is no specific reference to the “an historical” debate anywhere here – only a reaction to your sidebar comment about another unrelated usage in my geographical area (which you never clarified, despite my expression of genuine interest and request that you do so). I even reused your own phrase “remedial education” to make the connection clear.
When you implied that my comments about the negative consequences of non-Standard usage had to do with “an historical” with your subsequent remark about running with a tough crowd, I made it clear that no such reference was intended [this statement is quoted near the end of this post].
In light of all this, I’m trying real hard to figure out why you continue to attempt to put words in my mouth that I never said. Actually, I think I have figured it out.
What evidence do you have that deb was referring to this particular part of our exchange? I took her comments to be aimed at my original statements about the use of “an historical” when I first joined this thread.
**Wow! What I said was:
**
If you take this as an expression of “anger,” then you may be a bit too sensitive to participate in these discussions.
To this thread I say feh.
Whether it’s “a feh” or “an feh” I leave to, who else, historians to decide.