One troop too few?

J:

"syntactically speaking, it should be trooper, or even troopster, instead of "troop" (as "gangster" comes from "gang")."

----

I wonder if Syntax exists. I think "Syntax" is feminine, qua noun. As when in Italian they say "Virtu" (Virtue), another feminine.

It's US (utterers) who create syntax. So, when people say "troop" rather than 'trooper', one wonders who is following who.

I claim that if people use "troop" when 'syntactically' they should be using 'trooper', then it's 'syntax' that has to adapt to that. Not the other way round?


J goes on:

""Troop" is just the usual American slang... per Bierce..."the grunt of the human hog." Dubya should have said, "I shall not put troopsters in harm's way.""

------

Yes. One troopster too few.

I'm using 'too few' on purpose. I find that the idiom is, in general, for some reason, "one --- too many" -- but surely there is no logical reason why

"one --- too FEW"

should not make sense too.

---- If the 'troop' (collective) includes only one troopster ('troop' in this other sense), then McWhorther is claiming that a one-troop troop (a troop with just one troopster) has 'one troop too few'. With TWO TROOPS (two people) the troop (qua collective) is ok.

But the Griceian point is that this is implicatural. Surely a one-troopster troop is still a troop:

"The troop ARE coming".

---

J:

""Grunt" as noun also works for infantrymen, but some might take offense. I still think McWhorter was mostly correct that professional writers should use "soldiers" (or servicepeople, perhaps) over the slang "troops"."


------ and corpseman? (:)).

J:


"Moreoever I think the OED snobs are mistaken re etymology of "troop." While it did become frenchified, and used for like "troupe of thespians" it's quite clearly germanic-goth, ala dorf, thorp, thrup (with the theta). The GMC entered the frankish often. The quasi-latinate "troppus" followed the GMC pretty evidently --but the OED have a latinate presumption (with some reason)."

----

Yes, but surely there is some charm about a theatrical troup which only includes a troupster.

"We used to be a double-act," reminisced Costello (of Abbot and Costello fame), but when Abbott left, I was the troupe."

J:

"There are cognates with the goth in sanskrit I believe--as with many GMC words."

---- I'll check them out.

Let's reconsider the original query to Michael Quinion, from Rosemary Delnavine:

"For at least as long as Western troops have been occupying
Afghanistan and Iraq, news reports have routinely misused the word
"troops""

'misuse' is being misused here!

"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"?"

Not according to the OED. Although a scare quote would not harm: "Three 'troops' were wounded".

Now, if they were killed, 'wounded' would be underinformative, mind.

Rosemary goes on:

""Three troopers", yes, if
they were part of a regiment that is or was mounted."

Exactly. There's the regiment and there's the 'troop'. Technically, in theory, the number of SOLDIERS per troop should be fixed. I read a lot about the Roman army and the numbers were quite great, I mean high, I mean big.

---- Surely a one-soldier troop would be VERY GRICEAIANLY still called a 'troop', but not FALSELY.

Quinion answers:

"This usage has been bugging Americans in recent years,"

and not Brits? Surely they consume the same newspapers!

"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)."


------

Surely it would be misleading to say that you saw a flock of ostriches flying around -- for one, they don't fly, for another, what if it was just ONE?

--


"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")"


---- Or, the crops were attended by several flocks.


"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.")."

Only it turned out that the only survivor in the troops was "Tommy -- troopster -- Atkins", who lacked a leg. (Bad humour, but this is fiction).

"The usage of "troops" that [Rosemary] refer[s] 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."

---- Surely something as VAGUE as that cannot be given a 'meaning postulate' alla Carnap. "Large enough". Consider, "His nose is big". "Big meaning 'large enough and not closely specified'?

Quinion:

"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.]"

-----

5,000 troops -- meaning 5,000 soldiers.

The problem is if by diminution you get

1-member troop -- meaning 1 soldier (or 'troop').


Quinion adds:

"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."


But here is where he goes wrong, because the OED has a 1832 quote where 'troop' IS used in the singular.


"One cannot refer to a single soldier as a troop. ..."

But one CAN. What McWhorter means, as per Grice ('avoid ambiguity'?) is that one SHOULDN'T.

McWhorter:

"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."


Quinion comments:

"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."

And here is the crucial quote of 1832 that refutes McWhorter's point about 'troop' not being used in the singular.

Quinion:

"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."

---- As if some words could only be used by, say, prostitutes. Surely we need to be liberal, Griceainly, at this point.

Quinion:

"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."

----

Yes, 'soldier' is too long of a word. "Tom" as in "tommy" (Atkins) may be better, but perhaps it's too masculine. (Although Tomasa is an Italian name).

And so on.

In general, I am with J in preferring monosyllabic words unless I find something specifically too supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to be true (or false, for that matter).