Interesting or not some Americans (ones who have not wandered too far from where they were conceived) on the Eastern Seaboard who may just be too old to care or add the extra word, also speak in that manner... It's "I went bank/hospital/et cetera." It does harken back to Latin (not to say that was the root of English, but it was one line), and personally I think it's a rather charming idiosyncrasy. Why make such a big of a deal (whatever THAT means?) about "folks", folks?Originally Posted by sister morphine
As for the hospital thing, it would be easy to quip that in most British cities there are more than one hospital, but probably more accurate that somewhere along the line Brits just stopped using the definite article when referring to things in everyday speech unlike in say, French where nouns are "le" or "la". Americans tend to use a lot of terms Brits would regard as archaic or extinct, such as gotten (and maybe that infuriating superfluous "of", such as in 'big of a deal').
