JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party has lost its outright majority for the first time in a devastating blow for the party once led by Nelson Mandela. The ANC has dominated South African politics since winning in the first post-apartheid elections 30 years ago.
The ANC was braced for a disappointing outcome, predicted by polls before Wednesday’s elections, but the final results are even more sobering. It won 40 percent of the vote, falling from 57% in 2019.
checks Google Ngrams
According to Google Ngrams, in American English, “an historic” and “a historic” were about neck-and-neck until 1935, when “a historic” started steadily pulling ahead. Today, “a historic” is far more common.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a+historic%2Can+historic&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-US-2019&smoothing=3
In British English, “an historic” had a solid lead for a long time, with “a historic” pulling ahead in 1986, and “a historic” now being significantly much more-common as well.
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=a+historic%2Can+historic&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-GB-2019&smoothing=3
The one that drives me nuts is “pressurized”. In American English, you “pressure” someone to do something, but “pressurize” something with gas. In British English, you “pressurize” both, which is ambiguous. I mean, given context, I can normally make it out, but it’s just ambiguity that doesn’t need to be there, and it always gives me the wrong mental image to start with.
I had no idea about “pressure”/“pressurize” in en-uk. Thanks for sharing that!
Well that explains why my British father with a doctorate in English drilled using “an historic” into me.