Canadians also phrase like the Brits
We have been over this many times. It is not that Brits omit the “the” when referring to hospitals, but rather that Americans always include it. Brits do say “she’s in the hospital”, when they mean a particular hospital at the time in question. But when they mean the general ongoing state of being in whatever hospital, i.e. the state of a hospitalised person, they say “she’s in hospital”.
Americans don’t make the distinction when it comes to hospitals, but do in other circumstances. For example “she’s at college” vs. “she’s at the college”. The former means that she is on the current roster of some college or other. The latter means that she is physically located at a particular college, right now.
Actually, we use both - omitting the ‘the’ when we’re talking about the function of the place, rather than just the place.
John is in hospital (he’s a patient)
Jack is at school (he’s a pupil)
Jill has gone to college (she’s a student)
John is in the hospital (he’s gone inside the hospital building, fixing some pipes - he’s a plumber)
Jack is at the school (he’s the postman, delivering mail - or more subtle and tricky - he is a pupil, but he’s there outside of school hours, playing football)
Jill has gone to the college (God alone knows why - we’ll have to ask her when she gets back)
Except we only use this phrasing for a few select kinds of place. We wouldn’t say “Jeremy is at theatre”, even if he is a trained actor.
“Swindon is/are shit”.
Jeremy is in theatre, if he’s operating on a patient.
Fascinating books, indeed!
Your two sentences above are exactly US style.
Sounds like you need a better copy editor. I’m British (and a copy editor!) and I would leave the subjunctive well alone in cases like that. It’s true that it’s not used all that often in informal speech and writing these days, however: people tend to say “If I was you…” rather than “If I were you…”, for instance.
It’s said that American grammar has tended to be more conservative, like retaining the present singular subjunctive in conditional clauses. Though some BrE dialects have retained some even more archaic features, like variants of “thou” and the requisite -st verb endings, I think that’s mostly accurate.
No one I know would omit “the” in “Grandma is in the hospital,” regardless of whether she is a patient or just physically located in the building.
I like the distinction given above but, as I said, I’ve never heard anyone actually use it here.
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[sup]*[/sup]Canadian all my life.
“Yes, this is she.” Sounds just fine to me. I wouldn’t think of speaking on a phone any other way. But with my friends – in a very casual and relaxed conversation – I would probably say, “Yes, that’s me.” The first is formal English and is considered grammatically correct. The second is not, but not one cares when you are with friends.
I’m in the Southern U.S. Where are you?
Well, I (another US Southerner) would’nt say “Yes, that’s me” on the phone to my friends. If they didn’t recognize my voice for some reason, I’d say, “Girl, it’s Mipp!”, to which they’d probably respond, “Holy shit! I couldn’t tell who you were on the phone!”
Can someone explain the American term ‘in back of’ - does it mean behind or at the back of?
John was standing in back of the weight bench.
Bob was hiding in back of the closet.
The marmite is in back of the pantry.
Can’t recall precise examples of reading it - although one of my favourite US writers uses it frequently and I find it absolutely jarring in otherwise exceptional prose.
This is quite a good one for illustration -
Swindon is shit = I did not enjoy my visit to the town called Swindon (bloody roundabouts)
Swindon are shit = The football team representing Swindon consistently falls short of my expectations
The plural creeps in because we’re mentally handling teams, organisations, bands, etc as a collection of people.
On grammar, both are pretty flexible: “Oliver’s Army is here to stay/Oliver’s Army are on their way.”
Don’t underestimate the linguistic effect of all those Germans and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. We’re a mish-mash of all our influences, and they are different from England’s.
John is behind.
Bob and the marmite are at the rear of.
So used in both meanings.
American from Louisiana here, and I think the closet/pantry used of “in back of” are very odd-sounding. “He was hiding in THE back of the closet” or “The jar is in THE back of the pantry” sound more like something people around here would say.
The first “… in back of the weight bench” usage is OK. In this case, “in back of” would be synonymous with “behind”.
I’m sure there are many regional variations of this usage.
Thanks - just to be clear I made those sentences up based on my recollection of how I’ve seen the phrase written. They could well be bad examples.
Note that this is a very rarely uttered sentence in America, although that has nothing to do with the grammar.
“Peanut butter” — much more likely.
“In back of” means behind but seperate from some place. “In the back of” means in the rear but inside of some place.
So if Harry is in back of the house, he’s out in the backyard not in the house itself. If he’s in the back of the house, he’s inside the house in one of the bedrooms.