One troop too few?

This below excerpted from the World Wide Words -- I should commented it, so that it makes more sense rather than just copying from online source.

But note that in my note, "One troop to many", I did reorder the material, and focused on the OED quote, as contradicting McWhorter's statement.

Of course I'm only interested in Grice-Club bloggers -- like J and me -- and what we think about this!

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Begin cited text:


Q. For at least as long as Western troops have been occupying
Afghanistan and Iraq, news reports have routinely misused the word
"troops" when talking about soldiers. Am I right in thinking that
"three troops were wounded" not only sounds daft but is incorrect
when what is meant is "three soldiers"? "Three troopers", yes, if
they were part of a regiment that is or was mounted. [Rosemary
Delnavine]

A. This usage has been bugging Americans in recent years, with a
lot of comment appearing on language-related sites.

The traditional position that you are likely to find in reference
books is that "troop" is a collective term for a group of people of
unspecified number (it's from medieval Latin "troppus", a flock,
and is the same word as "troupe" for a theatrical group). You can
refer to more than one troop in the sense of a set of such
collections ("the jamboree was attended by several dozen scout
troops") and use "troops" as a generalised collective term for the
forces ("the occasion was full of emotion and flag-waving as the
crowds lined the streets of Morpeth to give the troops a rousing
Northumbrian welcome.").

The usage of "troops" that you refer to is actually not that new.
For more than two centuries writers have used it for a countable
number of individuals, provided the number is large and not closely
specified. An early example:

This Attack is to be commanded by General Alvinzy; and
the Army which he will lead to it will consist of Fifty
Thousand Troops in the highest order and spirits, and
confident of success.
[The True Briton (London), 1 Feb. 1797.]

It's easy to find many similar instances throughout the nineteenth
century, so it's notable that the Oxford English Dictionary's entry
for "troop", written in the early years of the twentieth century,
doesn't include this plural countable use.

Despite this long history, many people continue to be unhappy about
it. The linguist John McWhorter objected to it on National Public
Radio in March 2007: "Calling 20,000 soldiers '20,000 troops'
depersonalizes the soldiers as individuals, and makes a massive
number of living, breathing individuals sound like some kind of
mass or substance, like water or Jell-O, or some kind of freight."

He noted in particular that "This usage of troops is only possible
in the plural. One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop. ...
This means that mothers do not kiss their troop goodbye as he takes
off for Anbar Province. One will never encounter a troop learning
to use her prosthetic leg." It's becoming ever clearer that this
objection won't survive the pressure of current usage, at least by
the US media. "Troop" is increasingly being employed in reports for
an individual member of the armed forces:

The international force in Afghanistan says three
American troops have been killed by a roadside bomb in
the violence-wracked south. A NATO statement says two
troops died immediately after the blast Tuesday.
[AP News, 7 Jul. 2010.]

It came particularly to public notice in early November 2006, when
Senator John Kerry made an unfortunate joke and had to apologise:
"As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform
and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not
about, and never intended to refer to any troop."

I'm told that singular "troop" for an individual has been recorded
in US military slang from World War Two. People who were in the
services during the 1950s and 1960s say it was then common in the
Army. The Oxford English Dictionary added the sense to the entry
for "troop" in 1993 (despite continuing to omit the countable
plural form), with one isolated case from 1832 ("As the wounded
'troop' was not much hurt, a sort of truce was proclaimed."), but
noted it was then chiefly military. That's no longer true.

"Troop" has developed into a singular and small plural count noun
for several reasons. There are now many more women in the various
US armed forces and this presents gender-related difficulties in
finding suitable terms for individuals ("serviceman" doesn't work
any longer). More significantly, it's been difficult to find an
inclusive term for a single member of the combined services -
soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and so on. "Serviceperson" or
"member of the armed forces" hardly trip off the tongue. The US
Department of Defense likes "servicemember" but that works only in
bureaucratese, not in news headlines or everyday speech. Though
"trooper" is available in theory, it's restricted in American usage
mainly to a member of the state police, and otherwise to a mounted
soldier in a cavalry regiment. "Warrior" has been popular, within
and outside the military, but has connotations that have rendered
it unpopular or unsuitable for some. "Combatant" is almost always
pejorative ("enemy combatant"). Not least, "troop" is usefully
short for fitting into headlines.

Despite wide unhappiness about it, there's no doubt that singular
"troop" has become a settled part of the language of the US media.
But I agree with John McWhorter that it will be some while, if
ever, before a member of the armed forces describes himself or
herself as a troop, not least because mutual pride and loyalties
within a service mean that specific terms such as soldier or airman
will continue to take precedence.