I have worked as a copy editor for more than 20 years, and I have yet to find anybody who can prove that either version (“a” or “the”) is the “correct” version. Almost any conversation on the subject ends up with people digging in their heels and defending whichever version they use, simply because that’s how they’ve always said it. That’s not proof of anything (except maybe closed-mindedness).

Here’s a person who claims to have done some research in the OED that shows that the “the” version may possibly predate the “a” version, but that both stem from acceptable usage of the word “sudden” (and its precursors) as a noun:

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/02/sudden-life.html

I can’t vouch for that research, but it seems plausible. But even if it’s complete fiction, I defy you to use either version in a sentence and then diagram that sentence in such a way that proves conclusively that one or the other is correct or incorrect.

If you’ve got any evidence that’s more convincing than that, bring it on. If not, your soul should be able to go ungrated from now on, because both versions are acceptable and legitimate, regardless of what you’ve always assumed.

So I’ve developed an ability to ignore their poor grammar. However, it grates my soul when I hear professional broadcasters and journals uses phrases incorrectly.

All of a sudden – this makes no literal sense and drives me nuts. I’ve never heard ‘all the sudden’ – not sure if that would bug me more or less.

How about further/farther? This is so misused almost daily as well. So much so that language resources are now considering them to be interchangeable.

All of a sudden, ‘professionals’ go further to botch their language and are without a clue.

Then – one thing occurs then the next…
Than – comparison between two things. I would rather have tomatoes than bell peppers. (there are three types of usage available for ‘than’, but the most common case is comparison)

Lastly, this is my perennial favorite. Everything is LIKE. LIke you know what I mean? LIke what I wanted to say is like how bad is that? I dunno, how bad is it?

Ugh, it infuriates me to such a degree that I toss back the question; “So tell me, how much it like? LOL.

After writing this, I makes me wonder if not writing as much by hand plays a part in this mess? Anyway, English as a language, is horrible to write, let alone speak. I.E., RED/READ/READ. Toss in a colloquial here and there and all bets are off.

“this really peaked my interest” (“piqued”, people, we’re not mountain climbing)

“here here!” (it’s “hear hear”, unless you are playing basketball and want the rock)

and the bonus round . . .

“I could care less” (if you could care less, than you must care, but I thought you didn’t care, I’m confused)

My biggest language gripe is the escalating number of people who confuse “loose” with “lose”. Drives me crazy!

That “a before h” Obama thing you mentioned was bugging me after I read about it.