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Comment by ogdenyogly | Hacker News Reader

Any article that begins with a narrative is manipulative tripe and not worth reading.

When did capturing the reader's attention become "manipulative tripe?" The goal of any piece of writing is to persuade and convince. Opening with an engaging anecdote is a time-tested tool for bringing readers into a piece. Writers have been doing this for centuries. Would you rather the author reduce the article to a list of bullet points?

Also grammatical mistakes like "an historic".

That's not a clear-cut mistake, and in my opinion totally forgivable. http://www.betterwritingskills.com/tip-w005.html

Thanks for the link.

I didn't knew why I always used 'an hour' instead of 'a hour' but that's what I was taught. The link explains a lot.

People keep correcting me for typing 'an hour' instead of 'a hour'.

Only if it is literally pronounced as 'istoric. AFAIK there are no accents that do that other than maybe a few northern areas of the UK.

http://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/01/10/an-historical-event-i...

So it seems when writing in English for a French audience that using more often "an" would lend "an helping hand" to understanding (by supporting the internal voice)

Most people, including Americans, pronounce historic as historic, not 'istoric.

Northern UK here. "An' istoric" is very common in informal speech, even in the south but more so in these parts, but I wouldn't expect to see it written that way.

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