I know that all Englishmen drop some "h"s but many drop only a few. My guess is that you don't drop the leading "h" in hypothesis (or history, or hotel ...). If so, your use of an expression such as "an hypothesis" is therefore, I put it to you, silly.
Actually, according to Google Ngrams, "a hypothesis" overtook "an hypothesis" in popularity even earlier in Britan than in America (in 1895 and 1934, respectively).
As editor of a journal with Hypotheses in its title, and reviewer of about twenty hypotheses per week, I got fairly used to using this word - it became a habit. I think I picked it up from seeing John Betjeman on TV when a teenager - he always used to say "an 'otel".
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I know that all Englishmen drop some "h"s but many drop only a few. My guess is that you don't drop the leading "h" in hypothesis (or history, or hotel ...). If so, your use of an expression such as "an hypothesis" is therefore, I put it to you, silly.
But one does, in fact, drop this particular aitch - so taint silly...
Actually, according to Google Ngrams, "a hypothesis" overtook "an hypothesis" in popularity even earlier in Britan than in America (in 1895 and 1934, respectively).
As editor of a journal with Hypotheses in its title, and reviewer of about twenty hypotheses per week, I got fairly used to using this word - it became a habit. I think I picked it up from seeing John Betjeman on TV when a teenager - he always used to say "an 'otel".
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