The use of “an” with “history” is likely a holdover of its French origins where the h isn’t pronounced or from English dialects where the h isn’t pronounced. It’s essentially a learned behavior at this point. If it was used solely because of ease of pronunciation we’d expect also to see “an history”, “an high five”, “an hit record”.
But, in any case, for those who pronounce the h, “a historical” is easier to say.
In the case of lawyers I’d suspect tradition first and fear of typos reversing meaning (“ahistorical”) second.
Precisely. That is incorrect because the purpose of "an" is to make the first part of a word easier to say, and "historical" and "history" start in exactly the same way.
You're only doing it because you've heard other people do it and you think there's some special rule for it. Maybe subconsciously even.
And don't say "you can't say something is wrong in language because prescriptivism Vs descriptivism etc."
Yes generally it is the case that language is defined by how it is used. This is an exception, where something has a very very clear purpose and usage, and you're doing it wrong.
I actually can't think of any clearer cases where the prescriptivists are right. It would have to be something so obvious you don't even think about it, like using spaces between words. Yet for some reason everyone messes up "a historical". It's as bizarre as if everyone omitted spaces before "historical" but not "history" or any other words.
