Omission of definite article

[Jonathan Lighter]

Welcome, Kelli. And yes, some have noticed.

I can't say just when I began to note the replacement of "in the hospital"
by "in hospital" on cable news, but it's been a few years.  "In future" may
be more frequent. Yet "out of hospital" still sounds very UK.

The changeover is not very far advanced, though, even among the chattering
classes, and I'd still be surprised to hear anyone beyond the media or
lacking a strong British-Irish connection omit the article.

I almost said "Anglo-Irish," which sounds fine to me, but I didn't want to
offend any Scots, Welsh, or Manx readers, for example.

JL



On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Kelli Slimp <kellislimp at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Kelli Slimp <kellislimp at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Omission of definite article
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi all!
>
> I'm a M.Phil student of Linguistics at Trinity College Dublin and just
> joined the list serve a few days ago.
>
> It's been entertaining following the various conversations, and I'd love to
> hear your feedback on a little question of my own...
>
> I've noticed that the British and Irish press, as well as speakers in
> casual
> conversation, use the phrase "in hospital," effectively omitting the
> definite article, much the way we would say someone is "in prison" or "in
> jail," while Americans would more generally say someone is "in
> *the*hospital.
>
> Is the US press beginning to drop "the" as well? What about citizens in
> casual speech? What have you all noticed?
>
> Thanks in advance for your musings.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kelli Slimp
>
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