It’s easy most of the time to know when to use a and
when to use an: the initial sound of the next word
determines that. However, there are a few combinations that puzzle me:
a/an historical perspective, a/an
hotel?
JL
Jacksonville, Mississippi
Historically speaking, according to The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin, 1996), ?strong>an
was once a common variant before words beginning with h
in which the first syllable was unstressed; thus, 18th-century authors
wrote either a historical or an historical
but a history, not an history.?By
1926, H. W. Fowler (Modern English Usage) regarded the continued
use of an before such words as pedantic. Nowadays it
survives primarily before the word “historical? one rarely encounters
a reference to “an hysterectomy?or “an hereditary trait.?
Apparently using a or an before the
h- of the unstressed syllable of a few words
is at the discretion of the speaker or writer. Some people say a
historic time, others say an historic time;
some say a hotel, others say an hotel;
some say a hysterical child, others an hysterical
child.