Stephen Downes

This has long been a fascination of mind, ever since a colleague at the student newspaper titled a column 'An Historical Perspective'. Why would he use 'an' instead of 'a'. Well - it's a rule. But isn't the rule to use 'an' in front of a word beginning with a vowel? Not exactly - as this article notes, "The actual rule is not whether the written word starts with a vowel letter, but whether the spoken word starts with a vowel sound." Fair enough. That explains why we would say 'a unicorn' and not 'an unicorn'. But that doesn't solve the historical problem. We do pronounce the 'h' in 'historical'. Well - we do in Canada. In the UK and regions with similar accents, the 'h' sound is often dropped, learning an ungainly pronunciation, 'istorical'. And so you need the 'an'. But not in Canada. Next week: why Americans drop the 'h' on 'herb'.