For want of an indefinite historical article

[owlfish]

Dear People raised in the UK or Canada, and other people who like filling out polls:
[Poll #1679508]

Languages are challenging, not least because they keep changing. "an historian" and "an historical figure" were some of the British grammatical quirks I got down early.

Only now, the internet tells me, times, they are a changin'. It's okay to use "a" instead of "an" for histor* words in British Englishes. I would like some more evidence on the subject one way or the other.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Like you I pronounce the "H" in "historian", so I would no more say "an historian" than I would say "an hair", "an horse" or "an horoscope".

I also agree about "hotel".