Monday, 4 March 2013

An history? why?

Everyone who knows even a little bit of English should know that the article 'a' is used before words that do not start with a vowel.

For example: a loaf of bread.
However, when the word starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o or u), the article 'a' becomes 'an'.

For example: an apple.

Simple, is it not?

Well, no. English can never be this simple. There are always exceptions to the rules. Always.

So for words that do start with a vowel but somehow pronounced like they start with a consonant(letters which are not vowels) , the article used is 'a'.

For example: a uniform

Because uniform is pronounced you-nee-form.

How about words that start with a consonant, but the consonant is silent? Like that of the word 'hour'.

In this case, we use 'an' instead of 'a'.

For example: an hour.



So these are the rules and exceptions that determine the usage of a and an in English.

If I were to ask you, which article would you use for the word 'history'?

According to what we just learnt, it should be 'a', right? As in, 'a history'.

But why, oh why do we still see people use 'an history' in writings?

I am aware of the fact that people used to write it that way. The keywords here are 'used to'. Not 'we still do' but 'used to'. When old people write 'an history', I am probably okay with that but when people who are just as young as I am write 'an history', that is just being pretentious.

12 comments:

  1. this is an eye opener! hope that you'll keep on blogging even after your courses ended because knowledge is to be shared and blogging is one of the medium to share knowledge. Keep up the good work ifa ^_^

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  2. oh, and one more thing, you should add the follow button so that anyone who wishes to re-visit your page an do so from their blog account. they will also be notified each time you have posted a new entry.

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  3. 'an hour' is the correct word to be used. because? we pronounced it as 'our' not 'haw-ur'. so that is why we are using 'an' instead of 'a'.

    =D

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  4. hye nisa...ok i will n thnks 4 ur comments

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  5. you do the right thing dear to spread the knowledge and info to everyone outside there..hope u enjoy to add more in ur blog to ease someone find more interesting knowledge,,thanx for ur valueable lesson..:) nice blog

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  6. All about english.. nice blog..hai dear, come to my blog..

    http://cinta25hb.blogspot.com/

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. nice blog! you're getting off on the right foot with this entry. your writing style is quite comforting. more like reading a short story about vowels and consonants than an English lesson hehehe. keep up the good work! :)

    ps: sorry I deleted my previous comment. typo here and there :p

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