I think it works like this.
In the words ‘honour’ and ‘hour’ the h is silent.Therefore the vowel becomes the main letter,hence ‘an’.
It gets trickier.
People say “an uncle” because the’u’ is an ‘uh’ sound.(did you spot the ‘an uh’[:D])
but with the word ‘unicorn’ the’u’ becomes a ‘yoo’ sound,hence ‘a unicorn’
Speaking in the english language as a native you will automatically use the correct term as it is hard to say the two words otherwise.
Troy
Oh,and it’s ‘a historian’ [:D]
Who should we accecpt as the expert, the Englishmen (since itis their language), the Americans (since there may be more of us) the Aussies and Kiwi’s (since their long time isolation may have preserved the original English of antiquity.
This will be somewhat a real hoot. Be polite!
To relate this to trains…wooo, wooo!!!
Good question, Cpt. I vote for the French for no other reason than I feel sorry for thier badly mispronounced provincial Latin being passed of as a language. They speak English better than they speak French. As for me, I will “talk American” to my “English speaking” friends.[:D]
[oX)]
Does it make a difference if it’s a cockney 'istorian? [swg][swg]
Enjoy
Paul
If it’s any help,I was born and bred in the east end of London.How it is said makes no difference to the written word.I don’t know of any language that is written ‘as said’
Maybe it exists,but then again,they maybe just illiterate.[:D]
If you want to go really deep you have to look into the interaction of the english language with Latin and the rest of Europe.Many English,German and French words are alike.The Aussies and Kiwis talk like us,albeit with usage of local slang that has nationalised.The Canadians,I don’t know.Maybe they have become to americanised for their own good [B)].However in Canada you must not forget the French influence.
Come to think of it,if the French didn’t keep draining our resources,who knows how the World would be today.(I hasten to add that this is in jest (sort of)
Mongo like pretty books
I will say “an” since “Historian” is being used as a proper noun to describe a living breathing person and the “I” is represented later in the sentance by the word “Historian”.
Mikadousrp