On Mon 11 Aug 2008 11:59:37p, Ophelia told us...

> Pennyaline wrote:
>> Nancy2 wrote:
>>> On Aug 11, 3:34 pm, "Chris Marksberry"
>>> > wrote:
>>>> I agree, but Brits and Canadians seem to like to leave words out
>>>> that Americans include... They go to University instead of "The
>>>> University" and Hospital instead of "the hospital". At least we
>>>> can still understand each other!
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>
>>> But in your examples, here's where it gets crazy: Americans go "to
>>> school," but "to the university," and "to the hospital." Makes no
>>> sense whatsoever. LOL.
>>
>> Actually, Americans tend to say they're going "to college" or are "in
>> college" rather than "university." We rarely state that we are
>> attending a "university" or "the university" unless asked what
>> college we go to and it happens to "university" in it's name.
>>
>> I attended two colleges in a university system. At neither time did I
>> say that I was attending the university, and in fact we were
>> instructed specifically that we were NOT attending a university.
>
> We just used to say Uni.

I was taught phrasing like the following:

to the hospital
in the hospital
to school
at school
to college
in college
at the university
in the United States
to the United States
in the United Kingdom
to the United Kingdom
in Russia
to Russia
in Ukraine
to Ukraine

To some degree I understand the differentiation in the use of the article
"the". To another degree, I don't. :-)

At some point I remember beginning to hear people saying "in hospital". It
still sounds strange to me.

--
Date: Tuesday, 08(VIII)/12(XII)/08(MMVIII)

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