Arnie opened a thread in Potpouri by commenting, "I learnt Latin at school.

Over here we'd say learned. As I recall, many verbs have two alternate past-tense forms of the same pattern (spelt and spelled, for example), and there's a historical reason for this.

But I can't recall the reason. Help, please!

and there's a historical
reason for this.
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To say nothing of a reason for the a/an usage before an "H." A friend of mine is always amused by the column, "Helpful Hints from Heloise," since, as she points out, it should be "Elpful ints from Eloise!"

The "nt" construction is very common in UK English but not in US English. I do not know how the alternative spellings arose but there is an advantage in the case of "learnt/learned" since it is thereby possible to distinguish between the past tense of the verb "to learn" and the adjective "learned".

The use of "a" or "an" in front of "h" should be simple but is often misunderstood. Where the "h" is sounded then "a" is used (a hat; a hen); where it is silent then "an" is used (an hour; an honour). The difficulty arises when there are alternative pronunciations with hotel being perhaps the most common problem.

If the word is pronounced "otel" then "an hotel" is correct; is it is pronounced "hotel" then "a hotel" is correct. It is wrong to pronounce the "h" if "an" is used.

At one time in the UK the h was often left unsounded by both the "upper" classes and the "lower" classes - but not by the "middle classes where its omission was considered vulgar.

Nowadays the h is usually pronounced by those who deem themselves to be well educated but the fact remains that its use has always been optional in many instances.

Incidentally, the fruit we now call "an apple" was, I understand, originally know as "a napple"

Richard English