/lit/ - Literature

>>10689502
>doesn’t know basic grammar

>>10689736
>google A v An
>"Use a before words that start with a consonant sound and an before words that start with a vowel sound. Other letters can also be pronounced either way. Just remember it is the sound that governs whether you use a or an, not the actual first letter of the word."
>historic starts with h
>h is not a vowel sound
>"an historic" is wrong
>pic related is you

>>10689502
>an herbal recipe

Drives me up the wall.

>Some speakers and writers use an before a word beginning with the sound /h/ in an unstressed syllable: an historical novel, an hotel.[7] When this is spoken, the "h" is not pronounced so "an hotel", for example, sounds like "an 'otel". However, this usage is now less common. Some dialects, particularly in England (such as Cockney), silence many or all initial h sounds (h-dropping), and so employ an in situations where it would not be used in the standard language, like an 'elmet (standard English: a helmet).

>>10689502
should be "a" because it's a hard h

>>10689806
should be "an" because the h is basically silent.

that's how I think about it anyway.


How does /lit/ feel about ending a sentence with a preposition?

>mfw i used to say HOmage
>mfw I asked the english teacher in front of the whole class why something said "an HOmage"

>>10689904
H is silent in history. It's pronounced 'IS' 'STORY'.

>Thenceforward

How do you pronounce "macabre"? Is it like muh-caw-breh or muh-cawb

>>10689993
mayh-cäb-REEEE

>>10689904
I think Americans tend to pronounce the 'h' in herb.

>How does /lit/ feel about ending a sentence with a preposition?
Completely acceptable.

>>10689993
Muhcob

>>10689967
Fuck off you limey cunt

>>10689993
/ma.kabɚ/

>>10689993
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzFPmx96nnA

>>10689736
that's an hell of an argument anon

>>10690041
Oh, you've misunderstood me, I'm not trying to argue with you, for I know that I'm right and you're wrong. I'm just mocking you because I want to discourage idiots like you from posting.

>>10689806
Is this the only accepted pronunciation of "herb" in the USA? I hate Americanisms.

>one-hundred five
>two liter root beer

>>10689745
>Use 'a' before words that start with a consonant
Does H look a vowel to you?

>>10690084
I don't pronounce the 'h' and have had people ask if I'm foreign because of it. I've lived in burgerland all my life but I had / have a speech impediment so a bunch of my pronunciations are fucked up.

>an hero

>>10691010
an kek

>>10690005
If anime dubs and cartoons have taught me anything, it's that Americans tend to heavily pronounce the r and not pronounce the h at all in the word herb, unless it's from the name Herbert.

silent Hs are american mutt memes that don't actually exist

>>10691402
You're not wrong.
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English

>would that

>>10689502
he may be french or spanish

>>10689502
>>10689745
h is a vowel sound...isn't it?

>>10689502
Because ahistoric is a word. Rules can be bent to avoid confusion.

>>10689502
an historic sounds better than "a" historic. Same with an heretic or an homeless man.

>>10691880
no. it greatly reduces fluidity, just stumbling upon that eich. unless you're french or spanish as that anon said.

>>10689502
>shews

>>10691904
Prefer voles myself

>>10689745
Depending on your dialect, some people do not pronounce the h in historic.

>>10689904
Ending with a preposition is fine. It’s an arbitrary rule from Latin.

>>10691915
nothing beats weasels desu

That shit really used to confuse me when I read the KJV as a child and expressions like "an hungered" came up but it shouldn't confuse anybody old enough to know that pronunciation changes over time and differs from place to place

Every poster in this thread would go apoplectic walking around Boston

Okay, so this is another shitty pronounciation thread. Good thing this exists, I didn't want to make another.
Am currently reading Odyssey (out loud, mind you) and I have no idea how to pronounce Athene, Poseidon (don't know which syllable is stressed here) or Odysseus. I keep saying
>eighteen
>po-say-dawn
>o-dee-sews
Am I ever...gonna make it?
Also are there any definite rules for english pronounciation in general or is just every imported word keeping its previous one?

>>10692225
I don't know how the Greeks did/do it but I've always said them kinda like "puh-sigh-don" and "oh-dissy-is"

>>10692225
There aren't definite rules for pronunciation in any language, there are always irregularities. English just happens to be highly irregular because it imported half its vocabulary.

>>10692225
Why not try to approximate the way ancient Greeks pronounced it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology

>>10692225
>Athene
/əˈθiːniː/ or /aˈθi.ni/

A as in comma, ago, or, as in palm, bra
th as in thigh, math
e as in flEEce, sEEd
n as in nigh, snide
e the same as above

A-thee-nee, with the stress on "thee": a-THEE-nee. Or you could just call her Athena/ it Athens.

>>10689502
everyone in this thread (before me) needs to be chemically castrated and used as manual labor

>>10693239
Why?

>>10692655
Don't do this, it makes you sound like an idiot and is as correct, when speaking English, as pronouncing Paris "pairee" Just look up dictionary pronunciations.

>>10689502
H is a rough breathing on a vowel, it is not a consonant.
I'm sorry to hear that you never studied linguistics beyond a burgerland kindergarten level.

>>10689502
using "An" instead of "A" randomly makes you sound smarter, same thing with "whom", just toss a couple of those out there and your IQ goes up by at least 50

>>10689935
kek

>>10693466
>randomly

>>10689745
>an UFO

>>10690010
I'm American you stupid motherfucker.

It IS 'an historic'.

https://vocaroo.com/i/s06EQuU5NCzL