Esoteric? Those of us of a certain age who actually studied English
formally learned that in speech "an" was used before a word beginning
with an "h" if the first syllable of that word was unstressed. The first
syllable of "hilarious" is unstressed. Another example, perhaps more
familiar: "An" historian.
Surely your English language complicator/mixmaster "knows" that.
, whether or not the h is silent.
As if! I'll trade you my English language complicator/mixmaster for
your Wayback Machine.
--
I don't need one. I can write at many levels of complexity, and pick the
one appropriate for the audience. Here, for example, I try to write
prose that measures Grade Level 6 with a Reading Ease Score in the low
80's on the Flesch-Kincaid scale. Those are the scores that used to be
used as optimum on the copy desks of most big city newspapers.
My guess is that FauxNews strives for Grade Levels 4-5, with a Reading
Ease score in the mid-90's...about the same as the Sunday comics.