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Lose Vs Loose

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Wyvern

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Certainly one writes "an historic" and says "an 'istoric" The BBC seems to regard it as optional.

I dont know about Hotel which is a French word.

However the Oxford Dictionaries suggest the "h" should be sounded and "a" should be used.
 

Hydro

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Something that gets right on my tits is "brakes" and "breaks". As in "He slammed the breaks on" or "This artillery piece is fitted with a muzzle break". Both cases it's brake! BRAKE.

I've not seen the word "brake" substituted for "break" though, as in "Don't brake that!".
 

Wyvern

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Actually, if you read books from the early nineteenth century they spell "brakes" as "breaks"

So it may have continued in railway tradition
 

Hydro

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Just shows that language has evolved enough to make "breaks" unusual enough to annoy me when used in a retardation context then.

I fear it gets used too often to merely be a continuation of 19th century usage, railway or otherwise.
 

exile

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The problem is that the actual sound of the of/have/ov is "indiscriminate" in general speech, but that is a part of the standard processes by which language evolves.
[Grumpy old git mode]I also blame the pathetic teaching theories that held sway in the 80's, when English teachers were instructed not to correct "trivial" things like spelling and grammar lest it discourage the child's expression. We now have great swathes of young people who mistakenly believe that correct spelling and grammar are not important[/Grumpy old git mode]

The people that were taught by "trendy" teachers - who were around in the 60s and 70s, I had to suffer them myself - are not "young" but approaching early middle age (like me).
 
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