r/confidentlyincorrect 19d ago

Tik Tok A infinite glitch

Red is a idiot

988 Upvotes

236 comments sorted by

View all comments

382

u/Aeroshe 19d ago

The rule only doesn't appear to work in a written context when you're unsure how a word is pronounced since it's dependent on the pronunciation of the following word and not the spelling.

Examples:

A university (since university phonetically starts with a "yu" consonant sound).

An FBI agent (F phonetically starts with a vowel sound)

76

u/djddanman 19d ago

And then you have "an historic" which is just weird both in writing and verbally.

-8

u/pollococo90 19d ago

It's "a historic"

11

u/totokekedile 19d ago

It depends on how your accent handles leading “h”. Several English accents would use “an historic”.

9

u/djddanman 19d ago

I just checked and both are accepted. I typically see "an historic" in formal and scholarly writing, so I thought that was the correct way.

1

u/dimonium_anonimo 19d ago

I learned about this from Star Trek. Every time Sir Patrick Stewart says it, it's "an historic"

I think it's probably more common in certain circles (like well-educated Brits in the late 80's perhaps) than others. But it's not wrong to say "an"

6

u/EdsonR13 19d ago

It's wrong to say "an" if you pronounce the H, just as it's wrong to say "a" with a silent H. This might seem pedantic at this point, but it might be worth clarifying to someone.

8

u/dimonium_anonimo 19d ago

Sir Patrick Stewart pronounces it with a hard 'H' and uses "an."

I don't mean to say that he alone sets what is correct or not. However, I did just Google it. I opened the first few results and each of them said there are disagreements among experts. So apparently it's not quite so simple as you seem to claim.

4

u/Aerosol668 19d ago

It’s pretentious. Nobody says “an hat” or “an hero”. Stop letting them get away with “an history”.

6

u/dimonium_anonimo 19d ago

I'm not "letting them" get away with anything. They do it with or without my permission. Would you suggest I travel to England and tell him to shove it? I really don't care that much about it. And even if I did, it seems 100× more pretentious to claim many experts are wrong (or should be wrong) and that people must relearn how to speak because you think it sounds weird.

Language evolves, and this one's been around a lot longer than either you or I, so maybe you should deal with it, or go start a language reform movement and preach why your way is better.

-5

u/Aerosol668 19d ago

Oh lighten up, nobody’s really serious about this. At least, they shouldn’t be.

6

u/dimonium_anonimo 19d ago

I suggest you reread the 4th sentence in my previous comment.

3

u/AgnesBand 19d ago

People do if they drop the H. For instance a cockney in London might say "I'm goin to the shop to buy an 'at"

-1

u/Aerosol668 18d ago

Yes. Thanks.