this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Please state in which country your phrase tends to be used, what the phrase is, and what it should be.

Example:

In America, recently came across "back-petal", instead of back-pedal. Also, still hearing "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes".

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[–] criitz@reddthat.com 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

The only one that continues to bug me is using "an" instead of "a" before a word that starts with a consonant sound. I especially dislike the phrase "an historic" (as in "it was an historic victory") which has bafflingly been deemed acceptable. Unless you're a cockney, it should be "a historic". The rule is to use "an" if the word starts with a vowel sound, and "a" otherwise. IMO.

[–] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 2 points 21 hours ago

I believe this comes from people trying to show off their education. Traditionally, words with a french descent were pronounced with a silent H. So for example hospital (from French hôpital) is an hospital, where hound (from Germanic hund) is a hound.
This is pretty much deprecated these days and anyone enforcing it is beyond grammar nazi, but it's interesting to know the pattern.
Source: my secondary school English teacher.

[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I’ve mentioned this here before but in the UK “an historic” is written because we are slowly dropping the letter “h” at the front of words from pronunciation. UK people often say “an ‘istoric” so it kinda makes sense… but looks clumsy.

[–] __nobodynowhere@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago

honour, hour, homage, honest, heir

[–] idogoodjob@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

It also makes it more clear your not saying "ahistoric" or "ahistorical"

[–] BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I follow Jeremy Clarkson and intentionally always use the wrong one. There’s an horse. A apple.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well hell, I use "an" before historic, every time.

[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago

It’s fine if you drop the letter “h” when you speak - like I do. It then becomes “an ‘istoric” and sounds correct.