I couldn’t say, because I’ve neverheard an American choose “university” in that context. That is, we would say *neither *“My daughter is in university” nor “My daughter is in the university” . She’s either in college or else she “attends”, “goes to” or “is at” * a particular university. The only exception is that “the university” might be used if which university is clear from context - like if one of the guys on the BBT told the others his cousin attends the university or if the one university in town is a major employer.
but I’ve never heard “My daughter is at (either college or named university)” used when the daughter commutes from her parent’s home
British people don’t say that. As Filbert points out, however, in some British dialects (though not RP or any high status ones) the “the” may be reduced to glottal stop, and hard for an American to hear. It is there, though.
I am not sure what you have in mind here. “Give me one with cream on,” and “Give me the one with cream on,” are both correct in British English, but have different meanings. The first means “Give me one from among those several ones that have cream on, not one of the ones that don’t.” The second means “Give me the one unique one that has cream on, not any of those several others that don’t.” I am reasonably sure, after having lived for over 20 years in America, that American English works exactly the same way here. Americans will not say “Give me the one with cream on,” if there are several ones with cream on available, They will, quite properly, drop the “the”.
Same as in British English, then, which is my point. The linguistic oddity is that Americans insist on retaining a “the” before “hospital” even in contexts where, for any other similar word, such as “college” or “jail”, they would drop it. British English is grammatically consistent on this point; American English, while normally following the same rule, for some reason makes an exception for “hospital”.
I live in Edinburgh, and if I said “I went to the University”, it would imply that I had visited the main campus of Edinburgh University is some capacity or other.
If I say, “I went to University”, I mean I attended tertiary education. A reply might be “Which one? Edinburgh?”.
“Hospital” is a bit more variable. I might say “I was at the hospital this afternoon”, which could mean as a patient or a visitor, and would definitely imply the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. If I was an in-patient, I would possibly say “I was in hospital last week” or “I was in the hospital last week” interchangeably. The only difference is “in hospital” would mean any hospital, whereas “the hospital” would imply Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
I’m not sure if it’s representative of a particular region, but does the institution/ideal reason apply in other uses, such as “set two extra places at table” or “in future, I’ll need it in writing”?
Nah, there’s loads of words. Prom and Homecoming are two that have begun to drop their articles when they’re being referenced in their ‘official’ capacity. I can’t speak to British English but I’m sure that there are many other nouns with varying degrees of formality that drop articles. The hospital disagreement is just the most popular and obvious one.
Is this a thing? I’ve only heard that from expats or recent returnees who spent a lot of time abroad where the flavors of English get mixed up a bit. I know it’s happened to me before, especially in this thread where I was dead certain Americans in the Midwest would say “going to university.” I was living abroad for four years at the time (not in an English-speaking country, though.) It took me about a year back in the US to sort out a couple phrases that I forgot were British English, and I still have a tendency to say “flat” for apartment.
I’m not sure it’s quite the same thing, but yes, there are subtle differences in meaning, depending on whether the definite article is used or not.
“At table”, rather than “at the table” covers situations where there’s more than one table in use (at least potentially). There’s also the sense where someone may be waiting or serving “at table”, where their duties may not necessarily keep them physically “at” the actual table the whole time.
“In future” generally has the meaning of “from now on”, whereas “in the future” more often means “at a point in time after the present”.
I could be wrong but I don’t think that’s what s/he’s talking about – the part that s/he probably meant was the final pronoun being dropped. (See, it’s so natural to someone from the UK that you don’t even realize it!) Most Americans would say “Give me the one with cream on it,” or maybe just “with cream,” but not “with cream on.”
My first exposure to this aspect of British English vs. American English was in Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in the sketch with Graham Chapman as Mr. Anemone allegedly trying to teach Terry Jones’s Mr. Chigger how to fly. Chapman is obviously hanging on a wire, but to prove he isn’t, he pulls a hula hoop around him–including an obvious break in the circumference of the hoop. Jones takes exception to this and says accusingly: “That hoop’s got a hole in!” Chapman yells something like, “Of course the ‘oop’s got a bleedin’ hole in, it wouldn’t be an 'oop if it didn’t, would it?!”
(Sorry, that was just one of my favorite sketches so I enjoy recounting it.)
My point being, Americans would say “The hoop’s got a hole in it.” Or maybe just “The hoop’s got a hole.” But never “The hoop’s got a hole in.”
One of my favorite Britishisms that you don’t find in the U.S. (at least I’ve never heard it) is “I’m going down the pub” or “She’s going down the shops.” I suppose it’s possibly been shortened from “I’m going down t’the pub” as mentioned above, but I’ve never heard the slightest hesitation to indicate there’s a missing word; it sounds very much a complete phrase. Just heard it on Gavin and Stacey. Admittedly that’s not a great example since the people who said it were Welsh, and have their own idiosyncracies (e.g. “Where to’s she now?”) but still, it’s definitely something I’ve heard in British films and TV.
This usage seems to differ from the “There’s trouble down at t’ mill” (to use another Monty Python sketch as an example, oy, can I do anything but quote UK comedies?), where I can hear the sort of hesitation between “at” and “mill” where the word “the” would go. It’s sort of like the double consonant in Italian, which is differentiated from its singular version via extra emphasis and pause before the repeated consonant. (E.g., the “t” in “Pasta” properly being said differently from “Spaghetti,” though of course in the U.S. we don’t bother with such niceties as pronouncing the double “Ts” correctly.)
Let me just note that in some cases here what is being quoted as what Brits would say or what Americans would say is something that only a minority of them would say. “Put kettle on,” “Give me one with cream on,”“I’m going down the pub,” “She’s going down the shop,” and “The hoop’s got a hole in” don’t sound to me like standard British expressions. They are used in some dialects, but I don’t believe that they are used in most of them. Similarly, “get washed,” “wash up,” and “come with” are used in some American dialects but not most of them. “Plaintiff seeks relief from defendant’s behavior” may be standard in legal terminology in the U.S. but the dropping of the word “the” two times in that sentence wouldn’t be done outside legal terminology.
njtt points out that the characters on The Big Bang Theory frequently refer to Caltech as “the university,” whereas in fact people who study or work there would mostly say “the institute” or just “Caltech”. (I’ll take njtt’s word on this, since I’ve never been there.) I suspect that it has nothing to do with whether Caltech raised some objection to their name being mentioned too often on the show. I think that it’s because, like most American TV shows, it’s written by people who have no idea what actually goes on in the area where their show is set. The Big Bang Theory isn’t even as bad as some shows because it’s at least set in southern California. American TV producers think that they have to occasionally set a TV program outside of southern California in order to be able to pretend that they want to appeal to the whole country. They don’t want to actually spend any time outside of southern California to research the show though and don’t want to hire any writers from the area where the show is supposedly set. I think a good rule for non-Americans to follow in watching an American TV program is to assume that the show is garbage as far as it being a realistic treatment of how most Americans act.
Not used in all or most dialects? Pull the other one! Also, rain is wet, I hear.
Seriously, I am familiar with a metric fuckton of British accents and syntax thanks to both being a crazy Anglophile and someone who watches/listens to more UK-based than U.S. programs, and reads more British than American authors. And while I’ve never heard “Put kettle on” (I think that was a bad example, unless it was intended to be an example of the “Put t’kettle on” sort of Northern dialect) but I have heard eighty kabillion examples of “I’ll take the one with cream on” “it’s got a hole in” from all sorts of dialects – usually only in a casual context, though – from Estuary English to Cockney (or Mockney) to Yorkshire* and Mancunian and Essex and West Country and so on.
The point being these phrases are common enough that we, poor septics, recognize them as being found in British English (yes, even if not every British person uses them) rather than American. I personally find it endearing and interesting, just as I do when British folks will say “Only” where we would say “The reason being…” or “It’s because…” or some other such phrase. (Such as… okay this is a bad example here, but my mind is blank: “Have you got the new Viz? Only mine hasn’t arrived yet.”)
All this nitpickery ain’t half quaint. Bless.
Though that’s most well-known for the “trouble at t’mill” sort of construction.
No, it’s always going to be somewhat arbitrary which nouns can drop the definite article; Britons are no less arbitary than Americans for drawing the line in a different place.
For instance, both agree that ‘in college’ is fine, but saying someone is ‘in military’ (which is logically at least as generic as being ‘in college’) is not. Neither is it OK to say ‘going to office’, even in a context where it’s clearly meaning ‘going to work’ more than going to a particular place (and this is at least as logically generic as going to hospital).
If past discussion on this topic is any indication, it’s because the listener thinks the speaker is affecting Britishisms deliberately, either to sound more intelligent than (s)he actually is, or because (s)he thinks that Europe is superior to America in every way, and is expressing that belief through language.