an historical (pronouncing the h)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:40 AM -0400 9/15/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
>    I say "an historical" and "an heroic".  With a little huff.  That
>is, different from "an idiot". Self-reported, and self-conscious, and
>therefore suspect.
>    But I also say "a history" and "a hero".  With a definite huff.
>    But everyone knows I'm strange ... and pretentious in my speech.
>
>    Or -- is that because the first two are stressed on the second syllable,
>and the last two on the first syllable?

So I was claiming.

>    (Excluding the "a/an" of course.)
>
>    I could say "a historical" and "a heroic".
>    But I could not say "an history" or "an hero".  Or write
>them.  Or read them without marking up the book.
>
And consider my difficulty when my audiobook readers of the Jane
Austen novels kept talking about "an hill", "an house", and "an happy
man".  I couldn't very well damage the cassettes without incurring
the wrath of our overworked public librarians (one of whom I'm
married to).

LH

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