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One begins with a vowel and should therefore have an and not a in front of it. Why is it, then, that ‘such a one’ is what is actually said?

It appears to have been the case when the King James Bible was translated in 1611:

1 Corinthians 5:5

To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

(Bible Gateway)

Google Ngrams reveal that such an one is not absent, although not as used as such a one, in the publications of the 20th century.

Other questions like this one or this one do not explain why an is obsolete. Was the pronunciation different before? What changed?

One hypothesis would be that earlier orthography was considered to stand above phonology. Is that the case?

John Smith
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Toothrot
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1 Answers1

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From Inventing English: A Portable History of the Language by Seth Lerer (2015)...

Other features of Shakespearean pronunciation include the pronunciation of the word one. Descending from the Old English word an, “one” was the stressed form of what would become, in unstressed positions, the indefinite article a. Our modern pronunciation with the initial glide [wun] did not appear until the eighteenth century.1

A related issue discussed on wordinfo.com...

Occasionally in modern writing and speech and regularly in the King James Version of the Bible, an is used before "h" in a stressed syllable, as in an hundred.

1 As commented by @Dan below...

one was usually pronounced like own, as it still is in compound words such as alone (all one), atone (at one), and only ("one-ly").

FumbleFingers
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  • It is interesting that he takes the phrase an hundred as evidence that the h was not pronounced. I wonder if that is right. – Toothrot Nov 01 '15 at 13:58
  • @Lawrence: Not sure who "he" means there. I've never heard anyone suggest the KJV use of *an hundred* relates to "cockney-style h-dropping". Nor is it anything to do with the still-current American usage *an herb* (which imho just reflects lah-di-dah French pronunciation long abandoned by Brits). Eventually only the "regular" rule relating to "initial vowel sound" will prevail, I'm sure. That was the rule for *an one* anyway; I think *an hundred, an historic* are down to something different, but I'm not too sure of the "etymology" on that front. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '15 at 14:09
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    So how was one pronounced? "Own"? "On"? "Un"? – Andrew Leach Nov 01 '15 at 14:31
  • @FumbleFingers, the author of the book you quoted says: ‘It is clear, then, that in Shakespeare’s time[,] “hour” was pronounced without the initial h_’, arguing from ‘a_n houre’. – Toothrot Nov 01 '15 at 14:42
  • Having seen fairly recent instances of the kind of usage in quæstion I am not entirely convinced by this answer, that it changed as a result of a phonetic change. Unfortunately I cannot recall exactly where those occurrences occurred. – Toothrot Nov 01 '15 at 15:10
  • @Andrew: I imagine it's likely that *hour* wasn't always aspirated, since the equivalent in French probably never was (most modern Francophones actually find it really difficult to emulate the English style). But *hundred* is a different story (it's essentially Germanic, where I don't think "unaspirated h" is really an issue). But I've no idea exactly how (or whether consistently) Chaucer's contemporaries, for example, differentiated *a, an, one*. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '15 at 16:17
  • @Lawrence: If you've seen recent instances, I suspect they'll be almost exclusively from nns. We're essentially talking about a historical usage here. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '15 at 16:26
  • @FumbleFingers, see edit. what is nns.; non-natives? no. – Toothrot Nov 01 '15 at 16:29
  • @Lawrence: Yeah, non-native speakers. Apart from a few "pathological" quirks (such as AmE *an herb-port* and pedantic BrE *an [h]istoric occasion), the only* rule in play today is based on current pronunciation. If you see current instances of things like *such an one* they must be either nns or people deliberately emulating (or quoting) archaic sources. It hasn't survived in "standard" English. – FumbleFingers Nov 01 '15 at 17:31
  • @AndrewLeach: one was usually pronounced like own, as it still is in the compound words alone (all one) and atone (at one). – Dan Jul 19 '23 at 22:09
  • @Dan: Your excellent point is so well presented I couldn't resist copying it into my answer. If I ever was consciously of the "vestigial" nature of *alone* and *atone* pronunciation, I didn't remember it. But I don't think I'll forget it now. (At least, not until I'm well into my dotage! :) – FumbleFingers Jul 20 '23 at 12:21
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    @FumbleFingers: You're welcome :) And you can add *only* (one-ly) as another example. – Dan Jul 21 '23 at 23:17
  • @FumbleFingerss: I think that in the U.S., an historic very often is based on pronunciation. Many people in the U.S. drop the consonant "h" in unstressed syllables after words ending with "n" (and after some other consonants, as well). So an 'istoric is just as consistent a pronunciation as a historic. It's only some pedants that pronounce the "h" in an historic here. (Although I suspect that nearly everybody in the U.K. who uses an historic is one of these pedants, and that the an 'istoric pronunciation is nearly extinct there.) – Peter Shor Jul 22 '23 at 11:04
  • @PeterShor: I first heard *an historic occasion* with aspirated /h/ from a "known to be competent speaker" (Jeremy Paxman, compering University Challenge) nearly 20 years ago. I've forgotten the tiresomely arcane details of why that particular one was "correct" when other similar collocations just apply the default rules for *a / an.* Paxman can be a bit of a show-off / pedant, but I certainly wouldn't want to argue with him! Maybe not in our lifetime, but I expect *a historic* will eventually be the only credible pronunciation. – FumbleFingers Jul 22 '23 at 12:15