Optional articles?
Random question for the day: Why do Brits always refer to hospitals without the article 'a' or 'the'? For example, "Princess Diana was taken to hospital this morning."Should it not be, "Princess Diana was taken to a/the hospital this morning?"
Are there other words where this convention applies in British vernacular as compared to American?
Labels: random
3 Comments:
It's just how they talk! I actually like it - sounds more proper and it's just less wordy. Maybe that's just because I lived there.
Gramatically, yes. It should be a/the, but that's what different languages and customs are all about.
A potential example: In Boston, we say "wicked cool," whereas in England, they just say "that's wicked!"
But is there a reason? I'm not saying one is right and the other wrong, but is there a reason for the difference? If anyone knows, that'd be wicked! :-)
I read something along time ago that it's as much a cultural difference as it is linguistic. We use this optional article construction here in the US with "school". Why? Because schools are, in general, run by the government. We think of them as institutions. As do the Brits with their hospitals. Here in the land of privatized medicine, someone is not in an institution so much but a specific place, THE hospital.
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