A Headache of a Question and an Honest Inquiry

I recently came across a phrase I knew needed fixing in a current editing project. "An historical overview..." doesn't sound right to me, and raised a question I've occasionally pondered before. Should the article a or an be used before a word beginning with H?

A and an are indefinite articles; when you want to talk about a noun, such as "an apple" without talking about a specific noun - "the apple" - or more than one noun, you introduce it using one of these. A is used for words beginning with consonants, and an for words beginning with vowels. This is a straightforward rule, and we use these articles frequently without a second thought.

However, when the noun in question begins with the letter H, our assumptions are thrown out the window. H is a consonant, but some words with an initial H will not accept a. A quick search turned up a few articles indicating that the appropriate usage is determined by the pronunciation of the noun in question.

In many words, the initial H is silent, so the word effectively begins with a vowel. In these cases, an is the acceptable pronoun. Where the H is pronounced, a is used. Thus we might read A History of An Herbal Tea.

Of course, pronunciation does not establish a uniform rule; H-dropping is subject to regional variation. Even Merriam-Webster defers to the author: "You choose the article that suits your own pronunciation." We Americans would go to the cafe and order "an 'erbal tea," while a British person might ask for "an herbal tea," with the H enunciated If the rule is determined thus, we're bound to come across a few articles that brush us the wrong way whenever we read something written, translated, or edited by a Continental.

World Wide Words also suggest that many people follow an "extended rule:" when the stress is on the second syllable of an H word and not the first, an is used. We might check in to an hotel in an historical area. However, the article states later that younger people tend to prefer a to an in all cases, and I tend to agree. I changed "an historical" to "a historical" in my client's manuscript, because even such acceptable use of an really rankles me.

It seems difficult to draw a conclusion here. I think it would be best as an editor to apply the rule according to the speech of the author's intended audience. Next time this issue arises, it'll be a matter for the style sheet, though I'll probably encourage the author to follow my recommendation and use a in all questionable cases.

I raised another question for myself in this writing. When a word from our lexicon other than a noun is used as the subject of a sentence, should it be in quotations, italicized, or left alone? For example, should one use "a" before H or an before H? The Wikipedia article "A and an," perhaps because it is authored by multiple people, does not use either style consistently. Unfortunately though, this is a matter for another entry and another night.

An Elegy for Michael Crichton

As I read this NY Times article about Michael Crichton yesterday, I found myself mentally checking off the titles of the books I'd read. I wouldn't call myself an avid reader or adoring fan of Crichton, but weighing in at seven titles, he's a strong contender - at least in terms of quantity.

As for quality, looking back now I can see how nearly each of these novels astounded me with their tightrope plots, encompassing worlds, and playful reflection. I was shocked and appalled when a junior high school teacher pointed out the "Fiction" label on the spine of The Great Train Robbery and refused to admit its facticity. At a wide-eyed fourteen, I stumbled upon my first lesson in the mechanics of female genitalia, a third of the way through Disclosure. Congo capsized my vague trust in our human evolutionary superiority.

I never went to much effort to seek out his novels, but every couple of years one would come my way anyway. Each time I expected to have outgrown him, but each time found my enjoyment of the book far greater with the expansion of my sophisticated literary palette. Timeline resonated with a passing taste for the Arthurian; Eaters of the Dead, most recently, recalled Borges with its presentation as a systematically studied translation and mythological bearing.
Few books have absorbed my attention as fully as each of these has. They always seem to end suddenly, after more things had happened than could possibly take place in the two or three days it took to read about them, making my return to reality - school the next day - seem a colorless indignity.

Although totally escapist, these books never take us to comfortable places, but ones where barely knowable phenomena threaten our deeply held, even subconscious, convictions of safety and consistency. For all his intellect, Crichton found an accessible, popular mode of expression in detailed, action-packed novels that happen to lend themselves to film adaptation. As an editor, I can take a lesson in focus and subtlety from his oeuvre, on top of all the hours of entertainment.

Welcome to my blog!

Introducing the Between the Lines Editing Blog!

Here I'll post about my projects (with client permission, of course,) as well as grammar, books, and other things about the internet. I hope you'll find it interesting. I hope I find time to update frequently.