CNN错了吗

这是一篇流水账，换换风格。

今天下午，有位朋友在「玉兔，家里来人了。」文末留言如下：

文中的原文是这样的：

很显然，“In an historic first”中的an应该是a才对，因为historic的发音是/hɪˈstɒrɪk/，既不是元音字母（a/e/i/o/u）开头，也不是像hour /aʊə/或者honest /ˈɒnɪst/等词h不发音时用an.

于是乎，为了查证清楚，我Google搜了一下，震惊了！

发现「in an historic first」这种说法，Google搜索结果中就约有“34,400”条结果，更不用说，更不用说「an historic」了，About 9,510,000 results！

不过，这数字似乎说明不了什么，对比一下另一组数据：

「in a historic first」 About 211,000 results

「a historic」About 41,900,000 results

「an historic」和「a historic」出现的频率之间竟然只差一个数量级，理论上「an historic」这种用法不应该少之又少，只有笔误的时候出现吗？

我们再接着查证。

· 2010年5月《经济学人》（The Economist）这篇讲述“Britain's election”的文章就提到“历史性的第一次胜利”（in an historic first triumph），也是用的an historic;

· 2008年2月的这篇讲述朝鲜文化软实力（Soft power）的文章引言中就提到“in an historic first visit”。

· 《经济学人》最新的文章当然也有出现，2018年11月这篇讲述全球二氧化碳排放问题的文章“What would it take to decarbonise the global economy?”中也有这么一句：It is an historic undertaking.

例子还有很多很多，这里就不再一一列举了，看来不是“笔误”，那是什么原因呢？请听下回分解。

哈哈哈哈，皮一下。

我们接着来看Oxford Dictionaries给出的解释。

People often believe that they should use the indefinite article an in front of words like historic, horrific, or hotel. Are they right or wrong? Should you say ‘an historic event’ or ‘a historic event’?

a/an不定冠词英文是什么？Indefinite Article，那么定冠词就是Definite Article了，这里的article可以说是熟词僻义，指的就是“冠词”，英文解释为“A word used before a noun to show whether the noun refers to a particular example of something or to a general example of something. In English, ‘the’ is called the definite article and ‘a’ and ‘an’ are called the indefinite article.”

article除了“文章，论文”还有“物品，物件”的意思（a thing, especially one of a group of things），如：household articles 家居用品，a few articles of clothing 几件衣物；还可以指法律中的“条款”（a part of a law or legal agreement that deals with a particular point），举个🌰：

The country appears to be violating several articles of the convention.

该国看来正在违反该公约中的数个条款。

An is the form of the indefinite article that is used before a spoken vowel sound: it doesn't matter how the written word in question is actually spelled. So, we say ‘an honour’, ‘an hour’, or ‘an heir’, for example, because the initial letter ‘h’ in all three words is not actually pronounced. By contrast we say ‘a hair’ or ‘a horse’ because, in these cases, the ‘h’ is pronounced.

vowel /'vaʊəl,ˋvauəl/ 表示“元音字母”，英文解释为“a letter of the alphabet used to represent a vowel. In English the vowels are a, e, i, o, u. (英语的元音字母为a，e，i，o，u)”。

Let's go back to those three words that tend to cause problems: historic, horrific, and hotel. If hotel was pronounced without its initial letter ‘h’ (i.e. as if it were spelled ‘otel’), then it would be correct to use an in front of it. The same is true of historic and horrific. If horrific was pronounced ‘orrific’ and historic was pronounced ‘istoric’ then it would be appropriate to refer to ‘an istoric occasion’ or ‘an orrific accident’. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people often did pronounce these words in this way.

Today, though, these three words are generally pronounced with a spoken ‘h’ at the beginning and so it's now more logical to refer to ‘a hotel’, ‘a historic event’, or ‘a horrific accident’.

结论已经很明显了，以前这几个词h是不发音的，就形成了习惯前面用an，但现在虽然h发音了，也有人还继续用an.

下面我们再看看这两种用法很有意思的变化趋势。

American English：

其中，蓝色线代表「a historic」，红色线为「an historic」。

It's clear that American English has shown a strong preference for "a historic" since the forties.

很显然，自1940年起，American English中更倾向于使用「a historic」。

Here's the chart for British English：

同样的蓝色线代表「a historic」，红色线为「an historic」。

British English also shows a preference for "a historic", although not as strong. This preference is also more recent, perhaps reflecting the influence of American English brought about by the Internet.

而British English中，此前一度都是「an historic」“占上风”，1980年之后才开始趋向于使用「a historic」。原因是什么呢？可能是互联网兴起后American English对British English的影响。

最后，总结一下，

A historic is more common in both American and British English, but both usages are sufficiently common to be considered correct.

再回到开头，CNN错了吗？

在这篇报道下，最新的版本中（Updated 1:49 AM ET, Fri January 4, 2019），CNN已经将“In an historic first”改为了“In a historic first”；

In a historic first, China has landed a rover on the far side of the moon, state media announced Thursday, a huge milestone for the nation as it attempts to position itself as a leading space power.

当然，我也翻出了此前CNN的缓存版本之一（Updated 12:14 AM ET, Thu January 3, 2019）进行对比，

In an historic first, China has successfully landed a rover on the far side of the moon, Chinese state media announced Thursday, a huge milestone for the nation as it attempts to position itself as a leading space power.

还有一个意外发现是，把successfully删去不知是什么意思，连同删去的还有Chinese？

小作业：historic和historical有什么区别？还有个词ahistorical你知道吗？

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参考来源：Oxford Dictionaries和Scribe Consulting