November 6, 2008

An Historic Election

Something has been bothering me for a while now, especially after everyone started talking about how the presidential election would be historic no matter who won, and ESPECIALLY now that everyone is talking about how historic it is now that we have our first African American President.

So anyways, here's my issue.

I am thrilled that Obama won the election, but my happiness keeps getting squashed every time a reporter calls it: "AN historic election" or "an historic day."

Who says its okay to use "AN" in front of a consonant? No one says, "I think I'd like an hamburger for dinner" or "My favorite animal is an hippopotamus."

If you're British, it makes sense, because your accent makes your "H's" relatively silent, so it would sound like "an 'istoric election."

(An exception that makes sense for all accents is the word "honest", because you don't really pronounce the H, like in "an honest mistake"...or "hour"...)

Does this bother anyone else? I googled this and while both versions are correct it looks like I'm with the majority on this issue...now I just wish people in the media would start saying the phrase without the faux British accent so I can enjoy the election results without anything clouding my emotions.

3 comments:

themgt said...

lol... I was going to write something about how Obama being black isn't really what made this election important, and started reading this post thinking you'd preempted that. Nope, just Missa trying to put that English major to some sort of good use! :p

Not that you're wrong

Anonymous said...

I think that what Obama will do to the upper middle class is an travesty of epic proportions and his party will lose an majority of the seats in congress in 2010

Joe said...

Damn Missa, that's awesome.

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