usage ridicule

[Joel S. Berson]

I like one quotation from H in the Grub-street Journal of 1734 [NS]
-- ""If men will write An house, an horse, an high-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."  80 years later Jane Austen was
writing "an house", if not also reading and saying it.

Joel

At 3/31/2012 10:25 PM, James Harbeck wrote:
>I'm coming a bit late to this -- I don't manage to read this list
>closely these days -- but I did a little light research on "a/an
>historic" a few years ago and there are some data and historical
>details that might be useful on this in it:
>http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/an-historical-usage-trend-a-historical-usage-trend-part-1/
>
>The intro is in HTML but all the good data is in the PDF. Too much of
>a pain in the ass to set it all up in HTML.
>
>James Harbeck.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org