I have noticed (what seems to my American ears as) the omission of articles from phrases, and they are almost always used by someone speaking British English. For example, I came across this sentence today reading about a British actor’s brother:
“He suffered from severe epilepsy and had been kept in hospital his entire life.”
If I was writing this sentence, I would have used “in the hospital” instead.
Another example to the question “where is your older brother?”:
“He’s in college” (general)
Or
“He’s at the college” (specific local college maybe?)
But British English allows
“He’s at university.”
I’ve never come across these constructions in British literature (mostly pre 1950). Is this a recent thing or have I just never noticed it before?
When is it acceptable? As an answer to the above question about your brother, can he be “at store?”
‘He’s at university’ means he is enrolled on a university course. It may not mean he’s actually they’re at that point in time - he could be on holiday in Australia and still be ‘at university’.
‘At the university’ would mean his specific location: “where’s John this afternoon?” “he’s at the university”. Or ‘in the university’, or ‘in university’. But not ‘at university’.
Similarly ‘in hospital’ means ‘undergoing treatment at a hospital’. ‘In the hospital’/‘At the hospital’ means a specific location at a specific moment.
No, you can’t be ‘at store’. This example is complicated by the normal use of the collective noun ‘the shops’. “Where’s John this afternoon?” “He’s at the shops”. One cannot be ‘at shops’ in the general way one can be at university or in hospital.
Which is pretty much the same thing an American would mean by “he’s in college,” even if the institution he was attending was a university.
(Although, in the U.S., we’d be more likely to say he’s “on vacation” or “on break” than “on holiday.”)
That, and the “in hospital” vs. “in the hospital” thing, are just differences in idioms. As far as I can think, they’re not indicative of a more general difference in how articles are used.
In general, British English (followed by Australian) tends to draw a distinction between abstract concept and concrete example much better than American English does. “In hospital” = “hospitalized”; it is a much-shortened version of “in such poor health that his attending physician found it appropriate to cause him to be transported to the hospital.” On the other hand, “in the hospital” means “physically within the hospital structure.” In American usage, there is no easy way to distinguish whether a statement means that the individual has been hospitalized or is simply visiting the hospital building at present (though “at the hospital” for the latter often serves).
Compare “Attorney X cannot speak to you because he is in court.” For all you and his receptionist know, he may be conferring with a client in an antechamber, slipped out for a cup of coffee during recess, or otherwise absent from the courtroom. But he’s “in court” – in the sense that he’s present at the courthouse complex with the intent of appearing for clients while court is in session.
Probably owing to the prestige of Oxford and Cambridge, the English have also historically made a much greater distinction between “college” and “university” than we do on this side of the Big Pond. “In college” for us means “attending post-high-school education,” whether it be at Harvard, State, or a two-year secretarial science program. It has several related and distinct meanings quite distinguishable from “in university” in British use.
There’s a good listing of the British meanings here, with one inaccuracy: “Degrees are always awarded by universities, colleges are institutions or organisations which prepare students for the degree”…not true, for example:
We do say that normally, but I realized recently that here, “At Dope”, I have fallen into the habit of saying I was “at a university” or referring to “my university years”, because in other countries a “college” is often just a short-term postsecondary training program, or even parallel to what we call “high school”, and it might be ambiguous to some here. If I say “university” everyone knows what I mean.
For instance, it’s Eton College, not Eton School, and the high school that some of the Beatles went to in their youth was Liverpool College.
