BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'

Subject: BS: Rt Rev Musket 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 06:48 AM

In another thread(don't go there!) Rt Rev Musket said
"...It may be spoken "an honest" but according to the style guide I used to write papers under, you* write it "a honest."... "

I'm fascinated by the use of a honest.
Have you got a link?
Everything I've clicked so far seems to me to indicate an honest but that dialect can influence the choice. Yet you said you'd pronounce it an honest.


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/an 
&
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q="a+honest""+an+honest"  

*btw if you reply I'd find it handy if you could use 'I' when referring to practices you follow( practices/ practises ? that might be the wrong spelling, sorry)

I should be in the garden. I'll check back tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Rt Rev Musket 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 07:08 AM

Practices. "Practise" only when the word is a verb. That's UK usage. The commonest mistake in the UK is to use "practice" for everything. Dave Mallinson's Absolute Beginners manual used "practice" throughout and he apologised in the foreword, which had clearly been added post-proofreading.

Anyone who ever pronounces the h in honest or hour, and several others, is semi-literate at best. Both words when written require "an."

Subject: RE: BS: Rt Rev Musket 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 10:33 AM

I can't recall ever having seen "a honest" or similar in written text.

On a similar note, what is the rule for abbreviations where the first letter is a consonant but itself starts with a vowel sound. For example, in speech I would say "a Member of Parliament" but shorten it to "an MP". I hesitate when I come to write a/an MP as I feel the reader may mentally fill in the missing words implied by the abbreviation.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Rt Rev Musket 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 11:11 AM

Re: The abuse of the Hinglish language by Parker, Lady Penelope's loyal manservant in Thunderbirds.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,Donuel
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 11:38 AM

I started a discussion of gravity wave discussion that was closed due to religiosity or what ever thread drift.

Upsetting but not important. Some members have long established foils with which they argue their own argument ad infintitum.

The first post I ever made here was interpreted as that of a troll for merely showing what I had invented in using computers to decorate wooden instruments. Someone thought I was going to sell them something.

In fifteen years I have not sold you anything. I contributed money, works of art, opinions and a tiny bit of expertise AND LOTS OF CRAPPY CARTOONS.

I say banishment should be preserved for those who threaten violenc or revenge. Let idiots be idiots.

Sometimes the only thing that survives is the ancient graffiti in Rome. But if you want to let only the lofty prose to survive it does not seem honest to me.

The real issue is not to close threads that have graffiti all over it, especially when the subject is historic and a first in history

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,Rt Rev Musket
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 12:02 PM

Yeah, the reason I recall is that it seemed daft not to use conversational English, but there you go. Dept of Health Style Guide circa 2004.

Mind you, the context of the thread is just as important. I was taking the piss out of Joe at the time. Needed a way to inject "pious" into it, and weak as it was, it was all I had.

Turning it into a thread is delicious though, given the old mission and all that.

Thanks Freddy..

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 12:22 PM

"Anyone who ever pronounces the h in honest or hour, and several others, is semi-literate at best. Both words when written require "an."      I tend to agree with Steve on that point.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 02:26 PM

"Dept of Health Style Guide circa 2004" ?
An actual link would be good.

At least you weren't alone
www.google.co.uk/search?q=health+document+"a+honest"  
Anyway, because a human wrote something down once upon a time doesn't make it true or something I would follow now.

It isn't in this anyway
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style


Can you describe a bit more about how you feel when you are writing something to take the piss out of Joe?

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 02:33 PM

And words that start with a vowel don't always need "an." A university. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 02:47 PM

This sounds like what happens in spoken speech versus writing things down. I stick religiously to "an honest" , but it doesn't much surprise me anymore when I hear something different out loud from someone else.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 02:54 PM

I found a PDF NHS style guide from 2008 (revised 2010). No mention of "honest". However, it does say "hospital" takes an "a".

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 03:10 PM

Surely the point is, that in honest the h is silent?

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: EBarnacle
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 03:38 PM

Same problem occurs with History and its variants.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: JHW
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 03:47 PM

One of the worthies who presented the prizes at my old school speech days would always tell us "Ow appy hI ham to be 'ere"

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: DMcG
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 03:53 PM

The problem is people imagine English (and other languages) have rules like this. They don't: they just have conventions.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 05:07 PM

Fine. But there are conventions and conventions. If you say or write "a honest man" or "thirty miles a hour" it doesn't matter whether you think you are breaking a rule or simply flouting a convention. It marks you out as a semi-literate, attention-seeking ignoramus.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 05:19 PM

Are there places in the English-speaking world where people pronounce the "h" in honest and hour, or is the "h" universally silent in those two words?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 05:27 PM

I hope not.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 05:58 PM

Oh, the haitch is always silent in those cases.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,DrWord
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 06:20 PM

No, not in standard [canadian] English, though many speakers of our dialect have French as their mother tongue. So JHW's quotation might have come out of the mouth of one-time prime minister Jean Chrétien. Næthelesse, hit was 'ilarious to 'ear out newest PM [like Chretien, fluently bilingual, but without accent in either language] swearing allegiance to Liz "and her hairs" …
re: a/an history ~ seems there's some grammar crosses the pond and some don't. I say "a history book", but I'd say "an historical …" Steve: hwæt do you say?
threaddrift ~ don't get me started on the "wh" pronunciations …
Eric Blair's final line in his style guide, after some half-dozen brilliant rules, is "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous." Back to the banjo ~
keep on pickin'
dennis

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 07:39 PM

I've been at pains not to comment on the differences between American and British English. Yes, most Americans are simple-brained tossers, as we all know, yet in many, even most, regards, their spellings appeal, and my research indicates that the more imperialistically-inclined Brit would be wise to do some scholarship before dissing American English. "Practice/practise" should indicate the side of the Atlantic the writing emanates from. That's fine by me. But a Brjt writing to his student that he should practice every day is illiterate. A yank wouldn't be. "History" is not so clear-cut as "honest" and "hour." I prefer to drop the h myself but I would never accuse h-retentionists of illiteracy, as long as they knew what they were doing. Likewise, I talk of an hotel I'm going to stay in. If I see "a hotel" in print I wouldn't jib. But if you said it aloud to me I'd start feeling sorry for you.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 08:08 PM

SS"... It marks you out as a semi-literate, attention-seeking ignoramus."

Attention seeking is rather irritating.
I can forgive semi-literacy and ignoramuses. They're probably not setting out to annoy.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 08:27 PM

I'm not quite sure from that whether you're criticising me or them. I do think that people who, despite their long experience of life and social intercourse, capriciously use a non-mainstream spelling or other construction are attention-seeking arses.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: DMcG
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 01:39 AM

Agreed Steve. But the point I was trying to make is that knowing that you write 'a hospital' according to NHS guidelines does not allow you to deduce you should write 'a honest' which you could do if there was a rule. Instead, what you write is determined by an agglomeration of somewhat inconsistent conventions.

Either way, though, the deliberate breaking of them is attention seeking. (Which is, of course, quite a different thing to following a different set of conventions from one of the other varieties of English.)

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 03:20 AM

"Oh, the haitch is always silent in those cases."

Nice one Bill - at least I got it! ;o)

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 03:26 AM

an 'onest
a (huh)onest

IMNSHO it is down to pronunciation, but written - your readers will pronounce it how they will, so I would default to "an".

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,Rt Rev Musket
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 03:30 AM

I use "an honest" (or would I suppose if I ever used it?)

My original point was a style guide. The link I was asked for may exist electronically, I don't know. Presumably subsequent ones do. Hopefully not with the "error." Interesting that people ask for links as if we historically always used screen based stuff. (I would have printed them out anyway if I had...) Presumably many of us do so.

Again, it was used by me on a thread to respond to false piousness with false piousness. Most of what I have published these days, and that's dry medical papers, I use very conversational English. Editors for British Medical Journal etc take grammar at face value, it's more your citations and evidence for them...

I'm delighted to see it drag out into a thread of its own. Icing on the cake😂

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 05:51 AM

If you're not sure you could always write "he's not a dishonest man". As for a hospital, it's a big building with patients, but that isn't important right now...

I sometimes tussle slightly with what's the best way to write possessives. In speech I'd be talking about Jesus's miracles. But should I be writing Jesus' miracles? If I'm not sure I do the Mr Red thing and default to writing it the way I say it. Of course, I could always circumvent it by altering the construction. Coward!

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Stu
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 06:29 AM

" But a Brjt writing to his student that he should practice every day is illiterate."

Priceless.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 06:32 AM

point of order Mr Interlocutor.
I did say written use "an" by default.

Interestingly honest is usually pronounced 'onest and hospital is usually pronounced (huh)ospital.

But is that Norf & Sarf thing?

Me? Middle, owr kid, right on the line from Brizel to the Wash (or is it Wash to Brizel?).

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 07:16 AM

Thank you, Stu. My failing eyesight didn't spot that one in the tiny white box. Bloody eyepad.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,#
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 08:36 AM

Well, take it off.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 12:24 PM

"And now you see
He's made of me
A honest working man"

I always thought it was a deliberate misuse so the hearer would know the singer was illiterate?

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 10:21 PM

I guess you can ask a politician, or those who believe in them... THEN you can count on not getting an honest answer...nor a honest one!!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 02:49 AM

It's an honest, and the aitch is silent. End of.

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 03:04 AM

I always thought it was the p that is silent, as in bath?

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 07:55 AM

😄😄

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 08:14 AM

For those having problems with practice/practise, I sometimes stumble over that distinction, as both have, effectively, the same pronunciation. So there is no guide to the correct spelling.
I only remember by comparison with advice/advise.
I may offer you advice (noun), or, I may advise (verb) you.
I may advise you on current practice (noun), or I may tell you to practise (verb) what you preach.

Of course, due to the lack of distinction in the pronunciation, if I am reading something with practice/practise in it I will usually just read it in the context given, and not even notice whether it is correctly spelled.

Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 08:36 AM

Precisely how we were taught at school back in the '50s, Nigel. It really isn't difficult is it?

Subject: RE: BS: usage: 'an honest' v 'a honest'
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 12:43 PM

Thanks BW.
As we all know, the theory is easy.


It's the practice/practise that's the problem!


And don't get me started on the common idea of substituting 'if' for 'whether'. Even the newspapers do it. I suppose the shorter word makes for 'snappier' headlines, but they are not (or at least, shouldn't be) interchangeable.