August 18, 2006
On "troop" and "troops"
Q: I'm constantly bugged by hearing people on CNN or Fox talk about 2 troops or 3 troops wounded in Iraq. I always thought the words "troops" referred to a group of soldiers or a large number of soldiers, not 2 or 3. Am I wrong?
A: You and umpteen (roughly) other WNYC listeners e-mailed me about the nouns "trooper/trouper/troop/troops" and all the permutations. Since the discussion generated such interest, here's a summary of current usage.
(1) "Troop" (singular) means a group. It can refer to a group of soldiers, Boy or Girl Scouts, or (loosely) any collection of people or animals or things.
(2) "Troops" (plural), in the military sense, properly refers to a LARGE number of individuals (as in, "Five thousand troops were deployed.") When "troops" is used with a SMALL number, it properly refers not to individuals but to collections of people. "Three troops were attacked" would mean three units were attacked. When we hear a TV reporter say (and we often do), "Three troops were killed in Iraq today," what the reporter probably means is "Three soldiers [or marines or GIs, etc.] were killed in Iraq today."
So the singular "troop" in reference to an individual soldier ("one troop was slightly injured") is considered a misuse, as is the plural "troops" to refer to a small number of individuals ("four troops were captured"). We do hear and read such irregular usages, though. The Oxford English Dictionary notes several examples, dating back to the 19th century, of "troop" referring to an individual soldier or trooper. (The OED suggests, in fact, that this might be an abbreviated form of "trooper.")
(3) "Trooper" is commonly used to refer to a state police officer or to a soldier in a horse, armored, air cavalry or other troop.
(4) A "trouper" is a member of a performing company (theatrical, singing, or dancing); the company itself is a "troupe." But "trouper" also means someone who is a hard worker, a good sport, a reliable person, a mensch. Nine times out of ten, when someone uses a word that sounds like "trooper," what he means is "trouper," as in "What a trouper," "She's a real trouper," and so on.
Again, I'm talking here about current usage. Feel free to read no further. But in case you're interested, the English military term "troop" (16th century) comes from Middle French "troupe," which comes from Old French "trope," probably derived from "tropeau" (flock, herd), which comes from Latin "troppus," which in turn may derive from the ancient Germanic sources that gave us "thorp" and "throp," the Middle English terms for hamlet or village. Hundreds of years later, we reborrowed it from the French!
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