What is the difference between troops and soldiers

Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Clearly, to me anyway, when speaking about one member of the troops, it is a trooper.

Example: Two troopers were killed in Afghanistan today. Good to see that I am not the only one puzzled by the use of the word troop to mean a singular person. Math may be involved. Using troop to mean a single person is confusing and awkward, given the common understanding for it meaning a group of military people. Above, Steve V. Well, in my experience, your response is fictitious… I have spoken with service people from different branches and they never refer to themselves as a troop and they dislike that usage very much.

Is that writer Steve V. Come on…! A single person can not be a troop. A troop is a group of soldiers. Someone did something stupid with the usage of troop a long time ago, and a lot of mindless boneheads followed suit. And after 30 years it still sounds ridiculous and awkward and an insult to English language. All the news outlets need to start fixing the error, and giving our Armed Service people the honor and respect they deserve by referring to them by their proper title, which is not troop.

Interesting comments. But I never quit wrap my head around it. Clarity would be a good thing. I consider it an incorrect usage, and I wish journalists and newscasters would abandon it, as it sounds uneducated to my ears. Just stumble upon this. People are just infering that, it seems, from the plural use. Maybe they are fooled by the fact that troops ends in an S? Anyway, seems to be a non-problem.

Deborah H: You are correct. Historically and traditionally a troop was a unit of cavalry; roughly equal to a battalion of infantry or a battery of artillery. Sailors, marines, airmen, none of them are troopers of any kind. And so it goes with the other services. Rmysoldr May I think the question of modern usage has been solidly answered by at least 3 members of the U. As for etymology, I have read that "troop" is related to the word "trap," the implication being that the word "troop" refers to a group of people and that if you happen upon a group of people when you are alone, they will jump you we're talking about 5th or 6th century England here.

Does anyone know about that? Is it true? AO May I just stumbled upon this "chat" and thought you'd like my take on this discussion. I have been insensed about this topic for a long time, and would like your opinion on a letter I sent to the Federal Communications Commission recently:.

Dear Chairman, Please issue a "cease and desist order" to all Broadcast Journalists who daily exacerbate the anti-war movement, or liberal left-wing of the American Society, by misusing the word "Troop" or "Troops" in thier reporting of the Iraqi War death counts!

This "Scare Tactic" is a gross misuse of the English Language, but also the Public Airwaves - to encite viewers, or sensationalize the News! The definition of "Troop" in the military sense is as follows:. I "Support Our Troops", and wish to honor them and thier families with correctly worded and accurate reporting. I hope you will treat this with the sense of urgency it requires - as Journalists, we need to be experts of the English Language.

Regarding the Marines thinking that "Soldier" is demeaning, all who serve should consider themselves Soldiers, as in "Onward Christian Soldiers Marching on to War"! I have never served, and regret that decision every day!

Thanks for reading my post! I thank God I have never been ordered into harms way by a war criminal president or killed anyone who has never harmed me or mine.

This is semantics. Bush has ordered soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and troops, along with their corporate support staff who are not "troops" into harms way. They are all involved in an illegal, unprovoked, invasion, and occupation to invade, kill, steal, and lie about it. Get over the semantics and vote your elected officials out of office.

America has been hijacked and we sit around arguing about trivia. That is not the American way. Just came upon this. I currently serve in the US Marine Corps. The term troop, in their definition simply means on military member ie.

They use the term troop, like many others have said, to generalize all the branches of military said as "catch-all". The reason for this, again as previously stated, is that not everyone out there is a "soldier". Now, touching on what Mad Joe said, while calling a Marine a Soldier is the not the best thing to do, it generally speaking of the majority of us who have good sense won't start a fight as said before, but if whether you're a civilian or not expect an instant correction and possibly brief explanation of why.

Me personally, I have nothing against any of the branches, may God bring all our people back home safely--Semper Fidelis. David5 Aug I concur strongly with Steve above. A "Troop" is not a single person, it is a unit of soldiers! I have been researching the Army -Sioux wars of the 19th century.

Historical analyses written in the early 20th century consistently use the term "Troop" in this regard, as it was used in the American Civil War. I must say that I have not yet found a specific definition as to how may bodies comprises a "Troop" and this is driving me nuts, which is how I stumbled on this conversation. Steve's definition above of two or more platoons is the most concrete definition I've seen so far.

I am beginning to suspec that there is no definite number of bodies, in whatever capacity, associated with the term. Anyone with further insight, please help!! The way I understand the matter of the manner by which one speaks English, it seems that people really believe that they can make up the rules all according to their whim, which is based on a lack of their understanding "the logic of language grammar.

Thusly, in the matter of the use of the noun, "troop" instead of "trooper", it is just plain, BAD GRAMMAR, made to be correct by a mass of people that do not understand collective nouns and the logic behind them.

Any grammarians have a comment to make about this? Frank, the use of "they" and "their" with a singular antecedent is not a mistake. It's been part of English for years. John4 Sep I can't help thinking about my old girl scout troop -- the troop was the whole group of girls, and each individual was a scout. Maggie1 Jan What's that all about? I hate seeing the term "troop" used in the media to replace "troopers" it's so misleading.

If the newspaper says 10, troops were killed -- I always wonder it they mean 10, men, or , men, or ,, men, and how many men are in a troop. If I were president of the universe, I would not allow "troop" to be used to refer to a single person. Paula2 Apr I am delighted to see this discussion. I first observed this use of the term "troop" a few years ago around The point is that it was a plural term such as "pack" or "flock.

I understand from this discussion that "soldier" refers to Army, and not e. That is a fair distinction in military lingo, but it does not address the issue of the general usage of the term "troop" for a couple of reasons. First, even if "soldier" is not the correct term for a singular fighting person, then there should be another appropriate term, such as "serviceman" or whatever we want to call him or her.

Second, the military usage of the terminology is somewhat of a Red Herring. Within a given profession, terms often have a different meaning, which is distinct from the common usage of the term by the general population. For example, I am a lawyer, and to me the term "complaint" has a very specific meaning within the Rules of Civil Procedure. However, I understand that to most people, the term "complaint" is a generic term that is very different from my technical use of that term.

A layperson will often refer to a "fender, " whereas a person who works in a body shop might more precisely call it a "quarter panel. Our language is already rife with ambiguity and nuance; a little more won't kill anybody. When I first heard of "four troops being killed," I thought they meant many more than four people, but rather perhaps four troops of 20 soldiers each.

In this sense, the death of a "troop" is worse than the death of one "soldier. In the end, I do think that the term "troop" has been altered by the media over the past few years, and that we would be better if we could turn back the clock on this term, but the genie is probably out the bottle, and we are probably now stuck with the term "troop" either being ambiguous, or losing its original meaning altogether. John4 Jun A collection of people or, formerly, also, of things; a company; number.

Soldiers collectively; an armed force; - generally used in pl. A division of a cavalry squadrom commanded by a captain and corresponding to the company in infantry; formerly, also, a battery. Trooper n. A cavalryman or his hourse.

A troopership 3. A mounted policeman. Judy1 Jul The word troop comes from the French word troupe, which refers to a group of people, generally actors today. In addition, it later acquired the meaning "to move", as in "the marching band trooped along in the heat I personally do not remember the word used for a single military individual until THIS war, but there are quite a few who recall it during Vietnam.

I have yet to research that usage in the media. I know it has irritated me only lately. It would appear the word trooper derived from the above, to mean a member of a troop, especially a cavalry soldier. It is probable that in military usage, trooper was again shortened to be "troop" and thus we have the word being simultaneously singular and plural!

Today in BBC news: " His death brings the number of UK troops killed on operations in Afghanistan since to Klaus Jul Actually, Klaus, that was NOT the original question.

Klaus Aug I too am delighted to find this discussion. The "troop vs trooper" change in the language has been bothering me personally so much that I did a google search on "troop vs trooper" and ended up here. Until now I have been privately suffering over this dilemma. I have been soul-searching to ascertain exactly where I went wrong in my life to have misconstrued "troop" to mean a group of military personnel.

Or perhaps it was while watching F Troop on TV. Or perhaps when I got pulled over by the State Trooper. I have concluded that it is a PC thing. And I am delighted to find that at least some fellow citizens are mustering the troops. In the Marine Corps it is as follows: e-1 through e-3 is considered a troop e-4 and e-5 are Non-Commissioned Officers and above that in the enlisted side are Staff Non-Commissioned Officers.

So when I say "get me 5 troops immediately", I am speaking of the junior Marines. Soldier is Army, and Marines do not take to being called that very well. It is just the way it is. Brandon1 Sep Robin2 Sep Well this is still quite confusing. The only military people who responded to this board have all said that a "troop" can be singular.

Everyone else has had mixed opinions. I am still confused, but if our own military people say that it can be singuar, then it must be so- they would know, you know? Rorshach Sep American troops. Conscripted soldiers were soldiers that were actually trained - either by the army or other means - volunteer soldiers like most in WW1 were given no training and were just sent into battle to make up numbers as they did not have the time or resources to train more troops.

This is why conscripted soldiers fought better - because they had training. Many of the records were lost, but it is estimated that between , and 1,, Confederate soldiers served during the American Civil War. Approximately , Confederate soldiers died from battle wounds or disease during the war.

They called American troops "Gringos". Log in. US Army. See Answer. Best Answer. Study guides. Q: What is the difference between troops and soldiers? Write your answer Related questions. What is the difference between the cavalry and the infantry inthe roman army? Difference between Hessian and Patriot soldiers? What is the difference between emperor qin shihaung between the soldiers?