When an English person says someone is “in hospital,” it sounds odd to the American ear. We prefer someone to be in “the” hospital. Which hospital though? Maybe you’re in a city with multiple hospitals. You wouldn’t say someone is “in a hospital” unless you didn’t know which one. Is it possible our former overlords have this one right? I think they do.
In British English usage, you’ve got the option of distinguishing between a physical place and that place’s common purpose. An English person would in fact say, “My brother is in the hospital fixing the MRI machine.” If the brother in question were sick, “My brother is in hospital” would suffice. As Americans, we lack the option to omit a superfluous word and I feel a little ripped off over it.
That convention extends weirdly to “university” in British English and to “college” in American English. We do omit the definite article if we are going to “church,” “school” or “jail” for the purposes of inspiration, education or incarceration (but not if we’re there to fix the plumbing), so why not “hospital”?
No comments:
Post a Comment