When I was younger, I always took the word “troop” to be a group of some sort, like soldiers, actors, scouts, etc. but currently on television, I notice the word apparently is now being used as singular. As in one soldier is a troop and a group of soldiers are “troops”. Am I losing my mind here are has something changed?
The singular refers to a military formation, originally a platoon-sized detachment of cavalry. The plural “troops”, however, has taken on the meaning of “group of soldiers” as if each soldier were a ‘troop’.
troop /trup/
–noun
1.an assemblage of persons or things; company; band.
2.a great number or multitude: A whole troop of children swarmed through the museum.
3.Military. an armored cavalry or cavalry unit consisting of two or more platoons and a headquarters group.
4.troops, a body of soldiers, police, etc.: Mounted troops quelled the riot.
5.a unit of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts usually having a maximum of 32 members under the guidance of an adult leader.
6.a herd, flock, or swarm.
7.Archaic. a band or troupe of actors.
As Wilbo’s cite notes, when referring to an organized group of performers, “troupe” is a better spelling. It’s more common and makes it clear what your sense is.
“Troop” to refer to a single soldier is a back-formation from “troops” and is pretty bad English. If a soldier’s role merits the designation, he would be professionally referred to as a trooper, which is a valid military term to describe someone in a certain role (generally cavalry, reconnaissance, and such roles.)
It’s one of the curiosities of English that in military terms, “troops” is not the plural of “troop.” Go figure.
Says who? The dictionary doesn’t agree with you, nor does my military experience. I’ve been called a troop a bunch of times.
Which dictionary are you referring to? Wilbo523’s above has no mention of troop referring to an individual.
This confused the heck out of me a few years back. Reports would talk about “300 troops”, and my mind would immediately ask “well, how many actual soldiers is that?”
My earlier experience with the word was in the sense of “group of people”. When I was in the Boy Scouts, we were a “troop” (Definitely not a “troupe”, which was a performing group. Our literature spelled out “Troop”). Nobody ever referred to individual scouts as “troops”.
There were some 40 boys in our “troop”, so if anyone talked about “300 troops”, I’d expect if they were the size of our bunch that this meant about 12,000 individuals.
So those reports confused me at first – I seemed to be lacking vital piece of information needed to make sense of those reports. How many soldiers in each of those “troops?”
It turns out that the non-obvious answer is “one.” Calling one soldier by a collective name I’d always used for a larger-than-one-sized group didn’t help.
So has anyone who went through basic training - where we all learned that Drill Instructors/Sergeants are the ultimate arbiters of language 
Good God, I was about 30 years old before I figured out that “troop” referred to one individual soldier. I remember clearly asking someone - during a newscast - how many soldiers were in a troop, and neither of us knew the “correct” answer.
Just like CalMeacham, I thought 300 troops meant thousands of soldiers.
It also bugs the hell outta me, I always thought a troop referred to a group of soldiers.
But I gotta disagree that “troops” is bad english, if a troop is the rough equivalent of a platoon, then if three or four platoons came together what would you say? Or troops from different divisions?
The second one that bugs the hell outta me is what is now becoming common…
that person that serves you a drink on a plane…he is she is now referred to as a “cabinCREW” - I always thought that crew was also a group, and not an individual.
I agree with most of what’s been said. “Troop” meaning single soldieer is jargon or substandard usage. But, while “troops” can be the plural meaning detachments of soldiers, as in “The colonel sent out three troops to reconnoiter, each led by a lieutenant,” the more common meaning of “troops” in vernacular speech is “soldiers generally, taken as a group,” as in “The visiting dignitary reviewed the troops.” This will almost never mean “cavalry formations” but rather “individual soldiers taken collectively.”
Did you read that quote carefully? Go over it again; you’ll note it does not define “an individual soldier” as being a valdi meaning of “troop.”
I also referred to my Canadian Oxford, and indeed, “troop” does NOT mean “an individual soldier.” It is not standard English.
Yes. “Two troops” in the military means two individual human beings; “Two troops” in Scouting means two groups of Scouts (a Scout troop is based in or chartered by a single organization such as a house of worship or a school, and depending on the location will typically have anywhere from a dozen to several dozen members). IME calling one member of the military a “troop” (“Take this message to Battalion HQ, Troop”) is bad grammar and awkward. More likely the individual soldier will be referred to by his rank (“Take this message to Battalion HQ, Private”). In referring to such an individual in the third person, you would say “a Marine,” “that soldier,” “this sailor,” “an airman,” etc.
When I think of a “troupe” I think of a group of actors, performers or acrobats.
I’m also hearing the word “forces” used to refer to a numerically quantifiable group of military personnel, as in “10,000 additional forces were sent…”.
Part of the problem is that you can no longer refer to them as “men” since some women might be included, and it’s always been taboo to refer to Marines–or a number of troops that might include some Marines–as “soldiers”.
There many good all-inclusive singular nouns available. We’re stuck using the PC euphamism “servicemember”.
I think of Bobby “Goddamn Army” Troup.
That is all.
I find myself increasingly annoyed that the term “man/men” with the meaning “human being” has become politically incorrect. The Marines are, as usual, looking for “a few good men” – and they don’t much care if some of them are female. If he/she can qualify in the mental and physical tests, they might even take an intersexed individual. And that some recruits may not have reached their age of majority – they’re still “men” because they’re human beings.
If somebody tells off a troop to report to the Base/Post XO, I expect 20 or so men to be getting on horses and heading there.
And those of you alleging that drill sergeants’ usage constitutes good English – may I assume you put on your pants one pant at a time?
Oh, cry me a river! 
Not an insult; Troup wrote and produced his wife Julie London’s million-selling record of that name. And that’s when a million-seller wasn’t just whistling Dixie – or Joe Early either!
Anybody else just have the theme from Emergency! go through your mind?
I always thought that a “troop” was a collective noun, such as a troop of cavalry or a troop of monkeys. But, at least as far as soldiers are concerned, an individual member of the troop would be a “trooper”.
Being an innocent bystander as far as English usage is concerned I cannot but chime in. Whenever I hear or see the word “troop” referring to a single soldier I cringe and ask myself “Why can’t these people learn their own language properly?”
My only attempt at explanation is that it’s the result of sloppy thinking when someone (who knew the correct meaning) has referred to “our troops abroad”, or something like that, and others have thought that he meant the individual soldiers without bothering to look the word up.
Should be “an additional force of 10,000…”
Alas, a once-great language… :mad: