"A hereditary" or "an hereditary"

[Beverly Flanigan]

I'm in sync with Andrea, except that for me '(h)istorical' depends not on
person addressed but on whether or not 'a' precedes it, in which case I
liaise with /n/:  "It's an 'istorical fact"; if any other vowel precedes
the word, I add /h/:  "It's very historic."  Initially, of course, I use
/h/: "Historical Linguistics is...."


At 02:12 PM 5/10/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Pafra & Scott Catledge wrote:
>>
>> Dear Grant--Would you also say "a herb? ;{)
>
>Admittedly, I'm not Grant, and, as I don't pronounce the "h" in "herb" I
would
>say "an herb".  But I would say "a Herb Albert album", as I say "a hereditary
>condition".  "Historical" can go either way for me, depending on whom I'm
>speaking with at the time, I think.
>
>Andrea
>--
>Andrea Vine
>Sun Internet Mail Server i18n architect
>avine at eng.sun.com
>Remember: stressed is desserts spelled backwards.
>