“Four troops were wounded today in an intense battle.”
This use of the word “troops” sounds so grating to me, but I see it in newspapers all the time. Is this actually acceptable, or have America’s copy editors gone crazy?
What do you think it should be?
As far as I know, the word “troop” has been used to mean “a single soldier” for decades. However, the usage of the word seems to be limited to contexts where a number of soldiers is being stated. As in:
27 troops lost their lives in the attack.
but not: The staff sergeant reprimanded the troop for being out of uniform.
The word’s always grated on me, too, because it sounds just like “troupe”, which is clearly more than one person.
Well soldier would imply a member of the US Army. Troops is more generic and refers to either solders, sailors, airmen or marines.
Troop refers to a group of soldiers, trooper to a single one. I think the right expressions is “four troopers”. You wouldn’t say “four squads” to refer to four soldiers.
No. Doesn’t trooper specifically refer to soldiers in units with vehicles?
Or horses. Troop refers to a collection of them. From Encarta:
Dictionary.com’s definition 2b says that it can be used interchangably with “soldiers”.
Neither my 2002 American Heritage College Dictionary nor my 1976 Webster’s Third (Unabridged) contains any reference to this usage. Both define the word “troop” to mean multiple soldiers, not one single soldier.
I’ve heard that singular usage, too, but I’ve never encountered an authority that agrees with it.
Isn’t it one of those things that makes sense in the plural, but not the singular? No one would say “one troop was kiilled”, it would be “one soldier was killed”. Support the Troops. My son is a solider, not my son is a troop.
That’s what my dictionary says. Troop is used to refer to a group. The cavalry in the US Army used troop as the designator for a unit at the same command level as an infantry company with the next level up being a squadron.
You might say “a squad” which is explicitly a group.
I blame the Boy Scouts, who congregate in troops, comprised of several patrols, of 6-8 boys each.
The way it was explained to me was* troop * and *troops * mean the same thing-- multiple military personnel. Troop means all in the group are from the same branch, say all are Army. Troops can mean they’re all from the same branch or mixed-- Marines and Army. When referring to the singular, you say *troop member * or *soldier, Marine * and so on. I never even thought to ask about cavalry and such, darn.
It’s likely the person who wrote the headline was saving space by using 'Four troops were wounded" instead of “Four members of the troop were wounded” “Four soldiers (or ‘Two Marines and two soldiers’) were wounded” or “Four troop members were wounded.” After settling on troops for brevity, they then chose were because they agree with each other. Even though it’s wrong, which is like chewing tinfoil.
One question I always had was whether troop or troops is actually used to de-humanize the personnel. No one in the military, mainly Air Force and Marines, that I knew, was able to tell me. It was just policy. Maybe this is a question for Cecil?
“A troop of four soldiers,” sound more acceptable, if not headline friendly.
I resent your suggestion that copy editors used to be sane.
Anyway, it would appear that the beleaguered copy editors are just bowing to current usage. Lots of people say “troops” to mean soldiers, so that means it’s “right.”
But the point is that “troop” refers to multiple soldiers, not just one of them. “Four troops,” according to every dictionary I own, would be a lot more than four people.
Dictionaries are not authoritative – not even the OED. They are merely descriptive.
Spectre is correct up above – in military jargon, dependent on context, “troops” can denote individual soldiers.
James Dunnigan notes in his book Dirty Little Secrets: Dirty Little Secrets : Military Information You’re Not Supposed To Know that the word “troop” is even occasionally used (though not commonly) as an informal form of address between an officer and an individual enlisted man, as in “Buck up, troop! Hold out for 4 more hours, and we’re out of this hellhole!”.
I agree with both points being made here: (1) It is a grating usage, and (2) It has been common for a while, at least as far back as the first Iraq war.
Or as a joking comment during a ‘hurry up and wait’ operation. Like when you fall in for some unknown purpose and nobody shows up to do anything so you wait around. “Let’s get these troops out of the hot sun.”