This seems to be a fairly new thing. One has “a” history class, to study “an” historic event. Does this make anyone else grit their teeth?
Yeah, the whole “silent h” thing in “historic” just makes it sound a bit too cockney-ish to me.
I pronounce the “h” in “historic,” so I don’t have a clue why it’s supposed to be like that. There have been other threads over this, if you search in General Questions, there are some old threads there.
OK, want to hear something weird?
If I’m using the article “a(n)” before the word historic, then I drop the h. But if I am saying something like “that’s pretty historic” I pronounce the h. I just realized I do that. Now I’m going to be saying “historic” under my breath for the rest of the night to test stuff out.
Thanks, Dignan. Still feeling my way around the board.
Pronounce the h. Every history professor I had did.
IMHO using an before writing historic has come about because of computers. For grammar programs it would be difficult to program in the silent h. I have noticed it mostly in newspapers and magazines. This also is the cause of a totally wrong word being used as long as it is spelled correctly.
Fairly new? Yeah, if you count TV Newscasters in 1992 as ‘new’…
I hate it. It reeks of pretentious over-correctionism.
It’s not that peculiar, pegleg, since the fact that the first syllable is stressed in “history” would tend to make the /h/ more emphasized.
In my idiolect, I end up with the h in history: /'hIst@rij/, and so I say “a history”; but with historical, historian, etc., I drop it in all circumstances (/Ist’ourij@n/) except for sentence-initially. This is true even for non-“an” circumstances, such as after “the”: before “historian” etc., for me it’s “thee” /Dij/ as before vowels, not “thuh” /D@/ as before consonants (including other “h-” sounds, as well as “history”).
I’d have to do a sociolinguistics survey to find out how other people around here pronounce it, but I don’t think my pronunciation is particularly récherché, nor do I do it on purpose.
Matt_mci is one of those people that are trying to do away with English and we’re supposed to listen to him?
Well, it can’t be “new” because I have been doing this ever since I can remember. (And I’m not as new as I used to be…we’re talking a good 30 some odd years.)
Reading matt_mcl’s post made me realize that I do the same thing with the variable pronunciations of the word “the”. And I had not made the connection with the emphasis being on different syllables, but now, of course, it makes sense.
I wonder if there is a French language component? You are in Montreal, matt, IIRC? I grew up in Maine, in a town with a large French-descended population. I wonder if that has an influence?
Kniz, I beg your pardon?