Another pedant’s favourite, but more style guide than rule and hardly offensive enough to turn a genuine sentence into an abomination.
‘That is the kind of pedantry up with which we shall not put’ is an old but poignant rejoinder.
To boldly split
Split infinitives are the pedant’s delight. But let us remember what the father of pedantry, H.W.Fowler said about the subject:
The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish. . . . Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are happy folk, to be envied by the minority classes.
So don’t make a sentence horrific just to avoid it.
An historic
It is a simple choice whether to use ‘a’ or ‘an’ as the indefinite article before words that begin with H.
It is purely based on pronunciation. If you aspirate (breathe) the H then use ‘a’, otherwise ‘an’.
When the first syllable is not accented as in ‘historic’ the initial H can be dropped, and in this case ‘an historic’ is fine. But please don’t use ‘an’ and aspirate the H. You will sound like an tool.
