A historic or an historic
So then people, I need you to settle an argument for me.
Would you say “a historic castle”
Or are you wrong and you’d say “an historic castle”
Posted Jan 30, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC
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A
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[deleted]
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A historic.
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I try to avoid writing things that could be a or an, because there are some words where I twitch to use a (having had it drilled into me as a kid that it was incorrect) but know people will think I’m being pretentious if I use an.
Historic is the worst, but hotel’s nearly as bad.
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Personally I’d use ‘a’ for both, but whilst ‘an historic’ sounds right in some people’s accents, I can’t imagine it ever sounding right with hotel.
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It’s funny, when speaking I would say “the hotel” with a fairly clear h, but if I was saying a/an hotel it would come out more like “a notel”, similarly “a nistoric” for a/an historic.
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It varies.
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[deleted]
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Citation needed
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They're both correct. It's not a standardized rule as a/an is a pronunciation issue. If you don't pronounce the 'H' it's 'an' ("an 'istoric"), if you do then it's 'a' ("a historic").
If you doubt me, find some old BBC news reels or documentaries with Oxbridge types, you'll hear posh accented people (who often drop the H) saying 'an istoric' all the time.