The H You Don't Say Still Shapes the Word

French has its own rules about which H's stay silent, and a few of those words actually made their way into English along with their silence — 'hour', 'honest', and 'heir' all skip the H sound entirely, just like in French. This matters because English grammar depends on sound, not spelling, when choosing between 'a' and 'an': you say 'an hour' and 'an honest mistake', not 'a hour', because the word actually starts with a vowel sound even though it's spelled with H. The tricky part is that most other H-words in English do pronounce the H clearly, like 'hotel' and 'history', so you can't assume silence just because the word looks French-derived. Try this: say 'an hour', 'an honest answer', and 'a hotel' out loud, paying attention to which H you skip and which you say. This tiny rule is one your instinct will usually get right once you've heard the small list of exceptions a few times.