A rchive Date
[ 07-04-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1854765
ON LANGUAGE
Troops have strength in numbers
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
April 5, 2003, 11:37PM
Reader Andy Waddel of Santa Cruz, Calif., has an interesting question. "When did a troop become one person?" he asks. "Every news organization I encounter uses locutions such as `3,000 troops are stationed' wherever, when the meaning is `a force of 3,000 members.' I bet there are troops of loyal readers equally troubled by this troopification of the individual."
He brings up a weird wrinkle in the logic of our language.
A troop is a group, a collective noun. As such, it ought to take a singular verb, as in "the cavalry troop is advancing." But that use has atrophied - along with the cavalry (except in Afghanistan). We no longer say, "The troop is"; rather, we say, "The troops are."
So whatever has happened to the singular troop? The word still means "a small group," as in "a troop of Boy Scouts" (or even, in its earlier spelling, "a troupe of traveling players," from the Latin troppus, meaning "flock").
That collective noun takes the singular verb or pronoun, as in "a troop of Scouts is helping the old lady across the street, doing its good deed, whether she wants to cross the street or not." The singularity of troop holds when the meaning sticks to a small number.
When we say "three Scout troops," we mean three groups of Scouts, dutifully being prepared, rubbing sticks together in small bunches of eight or 10. We can then say the three groups - or troops - form a plural subject and take a plural verb: "The three troops are."
But when we get to a larger number, the logic goes awry. Then troops no longer refers to groups of people but to people. "Three thousand troops" does not mean that many small groups, but 3,000 individuals, almost always soldiers.
Why? No special reason; it's a quirk of language. Usage trumps grammatical purity. So learn to live with troops, the plural noun, meaning "that many individuals."
Now we come to the deeper question: how to refer to one troop - a single member of the armed forces. Trooper won't do; usage, in its persnickety way, has largely confined its meaning to members of the state police.
To deal with this, I posed a problem to Lexicographic Irregulars last month: "You can't say serviceman, because 15 percent of our armed-forces personnel are women. You can't say soldiers or troops, because that leaves out sailors and airmen (which includes women; there are no airwomen). And our boys is archaic for many of the above reasons and more.
So ... should the individual soldier, sailor, airman or marine be called a service-member, which places an unfair burden on exhorting speakers and headline writers?"
About 160 replies came roaring in. G.I., short for government issue, which first appeared in 1935, came in at No. 1. Almost a third had service in them: servicer, server, servmem, servicefolk, servicee, inserve and a dozen others. Warrior had 20 entries, as did various forms of "military": milit, milserver, milpers, military.
Acronyms had some representation, from Motaf (member of the armed forces) to the sexist Mom (member of the military). Defender and war-fighter were trailed by uniforms and the old Yanks.
Take your pick, but remember: A dozen service-members, a score of warriors and a single military add up to 33 troops.
Safire is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times]
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