Stress certainly seems a factor here. I notice that I can use "an" before an unstressed syllable beginning with "h", but never before a stressed syllable.

   a history class
   a(n) historic moment

   a horrible moment
   a(n) horrific moment

   a hex, a hexagon
   a(n) hexagonal figure

   a Hispaniola map
   a(n) Hispanic custom

   a Hermes myth
   a(n) hermetically sealed container

I probably use "a" more often than "an" before unstressed h-syllables, but I would not notice anything odd if I heard "an." However, I would never use "an" before a stressed h-syllable and, if I heard it, it would certainly strike me as odd.

The exception, of course, is where "h" is silent ("an honors class").

Dick

On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Arthur Henne <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I'm neither a linguist nor a phonetician (just a comp instructor), but I think stress must play a role here. The analogy to "ahead" might more properly be to "a history," where the stress comes immediately after the "a," whereas it seems more natural to say "an historical moment," perhaps because the stress falls on the second syllable of the following word. Does that make any sense to those of you who are either linguists or phoneticians?

Arthur Henne

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