“A Historic” vs “An Historic”: A PBS Special

In a(n) historic event hosted by your favorite public broadcasting service, two of the greatest grammarians of our time were at linguistic loggerheads for over 16 hours in an epic and heated philological face-off that we think is still going.

And may never end.

The debaters: Phyllis Whistlemaker – Though you may be able to deduce her family’s professional origins based on simple etymology, you may not know that she was the author of such groundbreaking books as The History of the word History (and other words and their histories) and also Impersonal Pronouns: A Personal Narrative.

Graham Hurnotzy – A legend in the grammar world, he is best known for reinvigorating the debate over whether or not brands (like Kleenex and Frisbee and Band-Aid) should also be used interchangeably as nouns in common parlance, arguing that it promoted archaic societal power structures and was, furthermore, silly.

Interestingly enough, the night was initially billed under the title “The Oxford Comma: Arbitrary or Necessary?” but took an excessive detour (much like the comma I would argue, though many may disagree–never mind) after the moderator framed the discussion as “an historic event…”

Transcript:

Phyllis: “A historic.”

Moderator: “Excuse me?”

Phyllis: “It’s ‘a historic’ event, not ‘an historic” event.”

Moderator: “Apologies. This is a historic event–“

Graham: “An historic.”

Moderator: Looks back and forth between the two

Phyllis: “Sir, you wouldn’t say, ‘Graham has an hairy back,’ would you? That would be ridiculous–not because he does not have a hairy back, he does–“

Graham: “You might as well use a quadruple negative now that you’ve used the double.”

Phyllis: (Ignoring Graham) “No, you would say, ‘Graham has a hairy back.'”

Moderator: Opens mouth slightly in shock

Graham: “First of all, I take exception to the unnecessarily personal example used, which, I must say, was extremely below the belt.”

Phyllis: “How far below the belt was it? Your knee? Your toe?”

Graham: “Now who is being ridiculous?”

Phyllis: “Now who is being unnecessarily rhetorical?”

Graham: “Good one.”

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