Quote:
Originally Posted by Trollheart
Oh sorry, thought of one more: the usage of words beginning with h! Suddenly it's the thing to do to put "an" in front of a word like hotel, heritage, hospital. What is this? It's "a historic occasion", not "an historic occasion"!! When did this start? It's everywhere now. What's next? "An happy birthday to you"?  |
As
this article says, the use of "an" versus "a" before a word beginning with H depends on which syllable of the H word is emphasized. And there is debate on that.
As for when it started? I'm not sure how it is in Jolly Old Ireland but public schools in the US were teaching the use of "an" before H words since at least the early-1980s in my experience. That is, it's not a sudden or even recent thing. I think it's the opposite.
Note that I said 1980s, not 1980's. I hate seeing needless possessive apostrophes in numeric dates. Why do otherwise intelligent people default to this? They wouldn't write Nineteen Eightie's.