S. Worthen | Weblog

I've come across this question before and as a result I'm not sure. Both are correct depending on how you pronounce your haches in in those cases (I seem to recall some people would go a history but an historical figure). I think my natural tendency is to say a historian and a historical figure and would naturally tend to pronounce the haches with some prominence, but I can pretty easily say an historian and an historical figure. Interestingly I think adding the "an" leads me to the partial elision of the h, so I will say something closer to an 'istorian and an 'istorical figure when I switch to the use of "an."