{"id":280,"date":"2013-08-10T22:26:39","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T06:26:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/?p=280"},"modified":"2013-08-10T22:27:36","modified_gmt":"2013-08-11T06:27:36","slug":"indefinite-articles-a-or-an-before-h-blame-the-confusion-on-the-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/indefinite-articles-a-or-an-before-h-blame-the-confusion-on-the-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Indefinite Articles \u2013 \u201cA\u201d or \u201cAn\u201d before \u201cH\u201d? Blame the confusion on the French."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s easy to remember what indefinite article to use before most words:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use \u201ca\u201d before words that begin with a consonant as in \u201ca banana,\u201d \u201ca xylophone,\u201d or \u201ca red convertible.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Use \u201can\u201d before words that begin with a vowel as in \u201can apple,\u201d \u201can editor,\u201d or \u201can eager beaver.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, words that start with the letter \u201cH\u201d do not follow the rule for consonants. For the letter \u201cH\u201d, the pronunciation dictates the indefinite article:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Use \u201ca\u201d before words where you pronounce the letter \u201cH\u201d such as \u201ca hat,\u201d \u201ca house\u201d or \u201ca happy cat.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Use \u201can\u201d before words where you don\u2019t pronounce the letter \u201cH\u201d such as \u201can herb,\u201d \u201can hour,\u201d or \u201can honorable man.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nAre the French to blame for breaking the rule of indefinite articles?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first Englishmen on the British Isles first spoke Old English or Anglo-Saxon. This is a Germanic language where the \u201cH\u201d is pronounced at the beginning of such words as \u201chouse\u201d and \u201chelpful.\u201d These words use the indefinite article \u201ca.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Circa 1066 AD, the Normans crossed the English Channel from France to take over England. Along with more sophisticated stone architecture and organized armies, the Normans merged French words into English. In French, the letter \u201cH\u201d is not pronounced at the beginning of words such as \u201cherb,\u201d \u201chonorable,\u201d and \u201chour.\u201d These and other such words use the indefinite article \u201can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s easy to remember what indefinite article to use before most words:<\/p>\n<p>\tUse \u201ca\u201d before words that begin with a consonant as in \u201ca banana,\u201d \u201ca xylophone,\u201d or \u201ca red convertible.\u201d<br \/>\n\tUse \u201can\u201d before words that begin with a vowel as in \u201can apple,\u201d \u201can editor,\u201d or \u201can eager beaver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, words that start with the letter \u201cH\u201d do not follow the rule\u00a0[&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[49],"tags":[50,51],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2DkBj-4w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gramlee.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}