h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was always taught, and I confirmed recently that my father was also taught the same, that words starting with 'h' use 'an' same as a vowel. i don;t remember any exceptions nor any particular explanation. So yes, an hotel, an horse, an house etc etc. However, it appears nowadays that this is not so and only words which, as Gnomon says, have a silent 'h' use the 'an'. so it would be an 'orse an 'otel an 'ouse.

I wonder if over time the 'n' will transfer over so we end up with 'a nhorse' , 'a nhotel' or 'a nhuman'

Slightly in answer to Gnomon's musing (and leaving out the H):

A few weeks ago a witnessed a news anchor on CNN actually say:

"that's a whole nother thing."

Sometimes I think that don't let them go to school.

Oh, and I was taught "an" before "h" all the time as well.

I often say 'a whole nother'. But I only say it as a joke. Really. Honestly.

"Sometimes I think that don't let them go to school"

oops! should have been:

"Sometimes I think that they don't let them go to school"

or perhaps:

"Sometimes I think that they didn't let me go to school"

Ah!
And I thought you were proving your point!

Here in Soviet Canuckistan we always walk a fine line between the eccentricities of the English, the foppery of the French and ****** of the Americans.

Like anhaga (fellow Canuck) I was taught to use 'an' before an 'aitch.
But here in Nova Scotia, we were also informed to use an 'a' before a haitch.

The logic was that Brits don't pronounce their 'aitches at all, and the test is, if the word has French roots like 'hotel, hostelry' then no 'haitch' is the 'Norm'. 1066 and all that.
But there are many exceptions, most emphaticly all the most common American pronunciations with a hard heated and breathy haitch, like hunch, honey, horse, hard on, hitch, hike, hemoglobin, homosexual and Harry. I's true man.


~jwf~

I say "an" before all "H"s , except the surface you play an hockey game on.

and being a Canadian, you probably mean ice hockey when you say hockey.

Thanks, jwf, for that lucid explanation of an before h.

I would tend to disagree with some of the above.

I think (but would need to confirm/check) that the root or origin of the word beginning with the letter H makes a difference.

In addition there is a natural language drift with all that that implies.

-An Human...no!
-An Hotel...yes!
-An Horse...a Norse is a whole different kettle of battle axes.

And there's another issue...a whole, a hole and a half!

turvy

I've just thought of another oddity...holistic. An Holistic approach.

The Irish rule is to put 'a' before any word starting with a 'h'. So you would say:

a human
a horse
a humorous situation
a hotel
a haitch

That's standard east British as well. "An hotel" is a pretentious affectation derived from the upper class habit of dropping the h when they knew the word was derived from French (and deriding the lower classes for dropping any other h)If the h is not pronounced, then of course it's an : an hour, an honour, an (for my idiolect)aitch.

Thanks, Star! You're right of course. Even in Irish English, we would say an hour, an honour.

I'm just thinking about Ictoan's musing that the N may transfer over, from the top of the page. This happened with lots of words in the other direction didn't it? I.e. it was originally a napple, then became an apple. So, does that mean that the word was originally "a nhotel/notel" which was moving to "an hotel/otel" in the same way, only it got caught up in the class thing about dropped Huhs. Or is this an example of some plonker in the eighteenth/nineteenth century trying to apply Latin rules to English and confusing everyone right royally?

Hotel has a h in lots of other languages, so it was never notel. I think the 18th century plonker theory is the most likely.

It's from the same root as hostel and hospital, neither of which lose the h sound in standard Brit Eng. Funny old language, hain't it?

So you're telling me my educashun was pretentious for teaching an with any aitch? Oh, and that was east coast education as well!
My fathers education was from London. Both schools which taught this were Grammar Schools. So maybe this is a Grammar school thing?

An' how can you be sure who says what?

Formal training in U.S. English taught me that "an" is used before a "vowel *sound*, whereas "a" is used before a "consonant *sound*" Vowels are defined as sounds which require breath to vocalize, but that doesn't always hold true.

From dictionary.com:
Vowel, n.
1. A speech sound...created by the relatively free passage of breath through the larynx and oral cavity, usually forming the most prominent and central sound of a syllable.
2. A letter, such as a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y in the English alphabet, that represents a vowel.

(I add 'w' to the list with y, as in "yellow" which is pronounced "yella" by those who don't.)


In some variations of English the "h" is always silent at the beginning of words, so the rule is generalized as "always use 'an'". In others "h" is always pronounced, so the rule generalizes the other way. In most spoken English, however there are no *always* conditions and so we get to post on h2g2 about it. The problem with this rule in general is that it takes spoken language and puts it on paper, which never works smoothly.

The purpose of the spoken rule is to avoid the English unstressed vowel turns into "uh" situation and ending up with us just mumbling incoherently. For example, if I were to say, "Eat a apple" it would sound like "Eat apple", but if I say "Pitch a Hissy" it doesn't "mumble-up". So, we put an "n" (notice it's AN "n" because of the vowel *sound* rule) and I "Eat an apple". Therefore, if I say the "h" sound it's "a" and if not than it's "an".

As *an honorable* person I had *a humble* obligation to say something. But let's not even bring up how to pronounce "herb".

Hmm... By the way, apple is from the Middle English "appel", from Old English "æppel". I never heard'a no "napple". Hmm...