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Confused about the word 'Troop' in the news.?
I've been confused about the news' use of the word "Troop" when reporting on the death of a soldier. The dictionary defines Troop as: A group or company of people, animals, or things. Now though, they use the word to mean one person. When I hear of "Six Troops killed in Irag" I picture 6 whole platoons wiped out, not 6 people. Anyone else think this is odd or know why they do this?
Why wouldn't they use 'Trooper'? Its only 2 letters longer. To say "one troop killed" sounds wrong when they mean one person, and I have seen them say it exactly like that.
but aren't "Paratroopers" specificaly the guys that are specialy trained to jump out of planes?
4 Answers
- _Lv 62 decades agoFavorite Answer
You're right! This is something that's been annoying me for ages with the American news!!
They are just TOO LAZY to either write the extra 2 letters or speak the extra syllable, so they refuse to use the word 'troopers' - but if they were actually showing RESPECT for these dead people they would use the word PARATROOPERS, because it's much more meaningful and polite!
- Anonymous2 decades ago
there's a dual meaniing to troop, whether its been accepted or not in dictionaries. if they haven't they'll probably fix it the next time they update the word list, whatever organization does that. although..youo bring up an interesting point
- 2 decades ago
i know people who went over in iraq and let me tell you this it means that they had 6 different troops over there and they are all alive or all dead or half and half it is usually mean half dead and half alive
