8/10/2019 'A' or 'An' Before 'H': What is Judicious?

1/4

A or Anbefore H: What is judicious?

Indranil Sarkar

17-11-2014

It irritates me; and I believe it irritates all. Whenever I see an eminent scholar or

at least a scholarly person uses Anbefore History, Historic or any other H word

where H (aiech) sound is distinct and not silent like Hour, Honour etc. my little

knowledge on the usage of indefinite article derived from the traditional English

Grammar books gets serious shock and confusion overpowers my poor

intelligence. In such cases, in more than one occasion, I consulted the Grammar

books by authoritative grammarians and each time got serious torments to

agitate my sensibility. I got utterly frustrated in seeing how the Kings English

language has been decoyed and degenerated since last three/four hundred years

just for the fulfillment of the snobbish whims or ego of some scholarly

personalities.

The rule in this regard clearly states that Anshould be used before a silent H

followed by a vowel; but, in case of a consonant H or a pronounced consonant

H sound,Ais to be used.

Now, H in History or Historic is not silent, though followed by a vowel i. We

dont pronounce istory or istoric. It has a distinct Aeich sound like Home,

Hotel, Honey, Hurry, Horrible, Humour, Hate, Hatred, Hurried, Hand,

Hundredetc. In all such cases His a pronounced consonant. In recent times H

has got a pronounced consonant status even in Heir, Humble, etc.

Some European ethnic groups cant pronounce H properly and that is why

8/10/2019 'A' or 'An' Before 'H': What is Judicious?

2/4

scholars from those ethnicity use Anbefore H. But, that cant be a reference or

justified reason for the scholars of a country like India which has started studying

English literature even before the English thought their language and literature

worthy to be studied in their Universities.

While trying to find out the root of this faulty practice, a very amazing fact came

to my notice. I found that the faulty usage was fostered by the English scholars

and elites and not by the half-educated English or so called native users. English

elites of 16th

and 17th

century who studied in French Universities and who were

directly associated with French language and culture, brought this problem to

their language. Originally it was simply a snobbish practice of the English scholars

who applied Grammar rules of French in their own mother tongue just to show

their acquaintances with the French cultural heritage. It was simply a tendency to

assert their cultural superiority over their fellow men. In course of time this

snobbish misuse injected by a handful of so called culturally superior Britons

inculcated an incurable faulty-tradition in the whole domain of English language

all over the globe.

In this regard, the view put forward by Fee and McAlpine in their book published

in 1997, is worth mentioning. Fee and McAlpine (1997) expressed their frustration

in the following words: British usage guides are recommending A against the

unnecessary An. It is probably time for Canadians to let it go too.

Historical Background

The dispute regarding the use of appropriate article before historicand

historicalis not new, although the restriction of the dispute largely to those two

words is of more recent date. Hill house (1928) quotes a piece titled Humble

8/10/2019 'A' or 'An' Before 'H': What is Judicious?

3/4

Petition of the Letter Hfrom the Grub-street Journal of January 24, 17334, in

this regard. In it, the letter H begs leave to remonstrate against the prevailing

custom of authors or printers, or both, who always set the article Anbefore a

word that begins with H: by which method they injuriously deny that he [i,e H]

is any letter at all. H regrets that they do neither call him a vowel, nor a

consonant. Hcontinues by asserting that it is already by a good custom settled

for speaking that words in which H is pronounced are preceded by A. He

complains, If men will writeAnhouse, anhorse, anhigh-lander, they ought

to read so, too. But if it be ridiculous to read so, it must be as ridiculous to write in

this manner.

Actually the problem arose out of French influence. Following the French

grammatical rule and customary usage, the elite English started considering Has

silent in English also. It began as early as the 16th

Century and reached its climax in

the 18th

century. Although there is a deliberate tendency to cast off this inherited

defect and restore the original pronounced [h], printers and writers still often

prefer the 18th

Century tradition(as they do with many points of spelling). Not

always, however.

Mark Lieberman (2004) tracked usages of An herousing the literary database of

www.lion.chadwyck.com and tracked more than 60 authors who used it. He

found three authors belonging to the last half of the 17th

century; the numbers

increased to a peak around 1800, and then dropped sharply to 1900. So, he

concluded that there seemed to have been a vogue and one that came about not

in concert with the French influence but rather more in line, perhaps, with the

late-18th

-century flush of prescriptivism.

8/10/2019 'A' or 'An' Before 'H': What is Judicious?

4/4

The use of Ancame to be restricted to h-words with an unaccented first syllable,

like historian and historic. But even that had come to deprecation, though not

disuse, by the late 19th

century. Hillhouse commented quoting the 1888 New

English Dictionary:this is all but obsolete in speech and writing Abecomes

increasingly common in this position. He added an admonition from the noted

prescriptivist H.W. Fowler in his 1926 Dictionary of English Usage: now that

the hin such words is pronounced the distinction has become pedantic, and A

historicalshould be said and written.

But the problem persisted. In 1929, Louis N. Feipel published a survey of 300

books, divided equally between American and British authors, and showed the

inclination to the faulty practice equally persistent among the English and

Americans.

In the 21st

century, an historic is still seen and widely thought correct and,

even more notably, a historic is thought by many to be wrong. The situation is

such that the more descriptivist New Fowlers Modern English Usage(Burchfield

1996, 2) allows the choice of aor an as a matter of personal preference. Most

modern style guides and expert writers on the subject disagree.

As such, as an Indian user of English, I feel every Indian should follow the

traditional rules of Grammar and use A before H when it is a pronounced

consonant. Sometimes simplicity solves many difficult problems. [1072 words]

****