"a historical" or "an historical"? (speech, essay, quote)

[acfreema]

and will you even accept that you've been wrong if someone corrects you?

either way, support your position with something other than "it's what my parents said"

[NYCAnalyst]

"A historical"

Historical begins with a consonant, therefore we use "A".

[YAZ]

Is it the consonant or the phoenetics that determine "a" or "an"?

E.g., "an" honest dentist....

[MissLariss]

Exactly, Yaz. It's the phonetics. If the consonant is silent or the vowel sounds like a consonant, our normal a/an rule doesn't apply. For example, "a university".

I think some people just pronounce 'historical' with a silent h and others do not.

[Cyborg13]

It's the phonetics that determine a/an. "Honest" has a silent H, therefore "an honest..." Historical does not have a silent H. You don't take an 'istory class. You take a history class. Pronouncing "historical" with a silent H is basically slang and is technically incorrect. So the correct format would be "a historical..."

[j_k_k]

I submit that there's no one correct answer. When you're writing, what matters is how your reader will read it. If your reader is more likely to aspirate the H, then use A. If your reader would tend to say 'anistorical' then I'd say 'an'. If I were penning a collegiate history paper, I'd use the latter because that's probably how my prof would read it. If writing a history essay for a trivia book aimed at the general public, the former, because I believe a tie goes to the chosen audience.

[acfreema]

so... if your chosen audience thinks "i seen ..." is acceptable, you should write that? there are right and wrong ways to do things

[j_k_k]

Originally Posted by acfreema

so... if your chosen audience thinks "i seen ..." is acceptable, you should write that? there are right and wrong ways to do things

Come now. One of the common sense rules of writing is never follow any rule off a cliff. But to answer your question, if I thought that would make a difference in communicating with my audience, I might consider it. I just can't envision a circumstance in which it would.

[acfreema]

i often feel the need to push on something until it gives.

having watched the "speech-training" in My Fair Lady many times, hearing (even reading) words where there is a pronounced "h" that is ignored... it irritates me so. errors that are so obvious(ly wrong) must be corrected, regardless of the culprit.

can't people understand that a consonant sound necessitates "a" instead of "an"?

[Sgoldie]

I prefer the, 'an historical event' because I find that in less than perfect elocution the a melts into the H providing a word that sounds like 'ahistorical', or something worse. The an provides more definition and gravitas to the word historical.

My emphasis is to write with the spoken word kept in mind.