Today's Broadcast

Topic: Historic & historical

We were asked to explain the distinction between historic and historical. We'll begin by addressing an age-old (if not exactly historic) debate: the use of a versus an before either word. Although some commentators point out that the unstressed or weakly stressed /aitch/ sound of historic and historical makes a the preferable article, both an historic and an historical are well established.

Now let's move on to any difference in meaning between the two terms. In brief, the adjectives are variants. Both are used to describe something of, relating to, or having the character of history, something based on history, or something used in the past and reproduced in historic (or historical) presentations.

But for those who prefer to differentiate, try this: historic is usually (but not necessarily) the adjective chosen to describe something important, famous, or decisive in history, or something with considerable importance, significance, or consequence. We speak of historic battlefields, for example, and historic occasions.

Historical also has carved out a position of its own. Historical is used to emphasize the character or quality of history (as distinguished from that of myth or legend). For example, a historian might claim the historical middle ages had little in common with those of fiction. 

So are these rules hard and fast? No, and they're not particularly historic, either, but enough people believe in them to make it worth passing them along.

Questions or comments? Write us at wftw@aol.com Production and research support for Word for the Wise comes from Merriam-Webster, publisher of language reference books and Web sites including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.