From the early 1990s until her retirement in 2005, she was the indisputable swing justice
Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court and the justice who held the court’s center for more than a generation, died Friday, the court said in a statement.
Her cause of death was complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness. She was 93.
Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement that O’Connor “blazed an historic trail as our nation’s first female justice.”
TIL John Roberts thinks “an historic” is still grammatically correct.
But what can we reasonably expect from someone who gets their legal opinions from 150 years ago?
The h sound is inaudible when preceded by “an”, making it correct.
Just the same as how you wouldn’t say or write “I’m be there in a hour”.
No this is completely different. The h is always silent in “hour”. It is not silent in “history”/“historic”. You can say “an 'istoric moment” if you insist but you’d better also say 'istory or 'istoric in other contexts otherwise you’re just being inconsistent.
Likely why it changed. Languages are fun and weird!
John Roberts is from the US, and people in the US pronounce “historic” with a hard “h,” as in “hill” or “hidden.” You wouldn’t say “an hill” or “an hidden.”
“An” is appropriately used when proceeding a vowel sound, like in “hour.” “A” is used before constant sounds. “The quarterback made a historic pass.” “There was a historic reason people used to use ‘an’ before the word ‘historic.’”
I’m aware some countries might not pronounce the “h” in any situation, but languages change, and American English made the switch in the 1940s up through the 1990s. Also, I will take every opportunity to make fun of Federalist Society Shill John Roberts.
Yeah fuck John Roberts for sure but you’re not going to convince me that something correct is actually wrong.
If you want to be pedantic, it’s not strictly wrong, but it is not a modern way of speaking or writing, and it hasn’t been for over two decades. And I’m not willing to give John Roberts the benefit of the doubt even for pedantry.
So so you also say “I went to the 'istory museum”, or “this movie is 'istorically accurate”?
Welcome to the wonderful world of language, where the rules are made up, inconsistent, and know to change with time.
Saying “an historic event” vs “a historic event” is an older way of speaking vs a newer way of speaking
I’m old enough to remember being in school taught “an historic event” as an exception to the “‘an’ if the word starts with a vowel sound, ‘a’ if it starts with a consonant sound.”
Personally I find myself using both versions as it was inconsistent during my education on which was the proper one and which wasn’t.
Yup, here’s the explanation for folks who don’t know:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/articles_a_versus_an.html
That actually disagrees with their point. It says “an” goes before silent “h” sounds (which means the word starts with a vowel sound), but it doesn’t say that it’s appropriate to make them silent.
“Historic” starts with a consonant sound, therefore it should be “a historic.” Furthermore, the usage of “an historic” is no longer considered a modern usage in the US.
https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/an-historic-vs-a-historic/
Even though that link does posit a logical rationale for a vs. an, it specifically states both are acceptable.
"However, some people choose to say an historic as in This is an historic event. Why? The simplest explanation is they may just have a personal preference and think that an historic sounds better than a historic. There may be other reasons, though. Historically, both forms were commonly used until the 1940s, when a historic began to overtake an historic. By the 1990s, a historic was much more common than an historic. It’s possible that the preference for an historic may be generational or a person may have “inherited” it from a parent or teacher of an older generation.
Alternatively, the preference could be due to regional accents or dialects. English speakers didn’t actually pronounce the H in historic until relatively modern times. This is most likely because the English word historic was influenced by the French historique, which has an unpronounced H. Regional English dialects that practice “h-dropping” may still not pronounce the H in historic, and these speakers are more likely to use an historic (an ’istoric) than a historic.
All of this tells us that both sides of the an historic and a historic debate have support for their argument. In informal writing, either form would be considered acceptable (and likely to face criticism from the other side.) In formal writing, though, the form a historic is the widely preferred form."