Americans trying to sound British, why?

Question

I hear and read more and more of Americans using terms like " Go to hospital" also "on island" and our "troop". When, if you went to school in America would be "Go to the hospital", "on the island" and " soldier". The latter is more and more in the news. A troop was killed, what happened to a soldier or sailor? Sound as if more than one person was killed when troop is used. Should the person be from England speaking, than understandable. When you know the person was educated in America what is the reason, to sound as if they were not? Proud to be an American and speak like one.

Answer 1

Well, perhaps it is just that they are speaking an even worse english, not British

Answer 2

In the UK we certainly say "in hospital" and "go to hospital", but we do not say "on Island" (we say "on the Island") and I have never heard any one refer to a soldier as a "troop" in the singular. So anyone who uses those terms would sound very affected. And I agree with you; although we in the UK tend to make fun of American phraseology (and I am sure that on the other side of the Big Pond you think the same of some British terminology), nothing sounds more ridiculous than a Brit trying to sound American and vice versa. Here we call that kind of speech "Mid-Atlantic" and it is usually held in ridicule.

Answer 3

Interesting.

The 'troop' thing seems to be a milspeak borrowing from British English. Or possibly a result of the 'Support Our Troops' bumper sticker proliferation. The military is a pretty consistent mangler/manipulator of language.

My family are from England originally, and it took me a long time to realise that our speech and spelling peculiarities were British standards instead of simply bizarre idiosyncracies.

Proud to be an American; also proud to not always sound like one.

Answer 4

I really don't give a sh!t if it is American or British English. As long as they understand me, isn't that the point? I rarely, if ever, use British English. The rare occasion is when I say "go to university" to foreigners sometimes. In American English, we would simply say "go to college" since a university is nothing more than a collection of colleges. However, many foreigners (particularly Asian) feel that college refers to a type of trade school like mechanics or beauty school etc. so I need to be more specific.

However, be aware, to use British English is not considered incorrect. Both British definitions and spellings are listed in the dictionary

Answer 5

Back in the day, everyone left out parts of a sentence or said things like "He's over to Tyler's" instead of "He's at Tyler's" and it was considered normal. I think troop is just used because it's shorter than soldier... and everyone knows how lazy Americans are *wink*

Answer 6

I've never thought about "go to the hospital" being American, but you're so right.

However, we Brits don't say "on island".

And a "troop" refers to a group of servicemen - if one soldier or sailor was killed, the newsman would say "a soldier was killed"

Answer 7

because they are psychotic