| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
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| § 1. a / an |
| In modern written English, we use a before a word beginning with a consonant sound, however it may be spelled (a frog, a university, a euphemism). We use an before a word beginning with a vowel sound (an orange, an hour). At one time, an was an acceptable alternative before words beginning with a consonant sound but spelled with a vowel (an one, an united appeal), but this usage is now entirely obsolete. | 1 |
| An was also once a common variant before words beginning with h in which the first syllable was unstressed; thus 18th-century authors wrote either a historical or an historical, but a history, not an history. This usage made sense in that people often did not pronounce the initial h in words such as historical and heroic, but by the late 19th century, educated speakers were usually giving their initial h’s a huff, and the practice of writing an began to die out. Nowadays it survives primarily before the word historical. You may also come across it in the phrases an hysterectomy or an hereditary trait. These usages are acceptable in formal writing. | 2 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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