Re: Countries with needless definite article.

[mje@xxxxxxxx]

[Patricia M. Godfrey:]
> What I've seen in British novels is "So and so is in hospital."
   Oh, we would say that in Australia too - but I took the question
to be specifically about the idiom of "*going* to/in hospital", not
about "*being*" there - and I answered accordingly. We would say that
a person already there is "in hospital" - without the definite
article. Conceivably we might say someone is in *the* hospital if it
was referring to a particular hospital, and if we were for some reason
focusing on that particular hospital.
> But I think the distinction between "to" for Latin in with the accusative
> and "in" for Latin in with the ablative holds in both versions of English.
   I'm not sure about that. And I did learn Latin at school, too,
but am not clear on how far subtleties of that sort transfer to English.
> So Brits and Americans go "to": Brits to hospital, Americans to the
> hospital. And Brits are in hospital, Americans in the hospital.
   To clarify: Australians would "go to hospital" and would "be in
hospital". It seems as if Australian usage is largely similar to
British. But Australians would rarely if ever "go in/into hospital".

             Regards,
             Michael Edwards.