Thank you very much for visiting me in [the] hospital.

Question

Hi.I am familiar with the rules regarding the use of 'the' before 'hospital:The subject is a patient:British English: He had to go to hospital for treatment.American English: He had to go to the hospital for treatment.The subject is not a patient:I'm going to the hospital to visit my brother.Yet I am somehow confused with this sentence:Thank you very much for visiting me in [the] hospital.On the one hand I am a patient there which suggests 'me in hospital' (BE), but he visits me so he goes to the hospital (BE). Perhaps I am just overthinking this issue and it simply should be 'the hospital'.Could you please clarify this for me? What would be the proper BE and AE version?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

One of our British friends will have to answer for that part, but in AmE it's always "the hospital", even in "... visiting me in the hospital".

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

ReegisThe subject is a patient:British English: He had to go to hospital for treatment.American English: He had to go to the hospital for treatment.

Correct.

ReegisThe subject is not a patient:

That does not matter in British English.

ReegisYet I am somehow confused with this sentence:Thank you very much for visiting me in [the] hospital.

In this example, the use of 'the' in BE has the same basis as in your first example. You would not need to include it unless you intended to specify which hospital for some reason.

You could work it out when you consider that in BE 'hospital' is used in the same way as the words school, university, court, prison and church. If you said the same thing with one of the underlined words instead, you would not need to include 'the'. Whoever you were talking to would obviously know which hospital you meant.

Thank you very much for visiting me in [the] hospital.

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