Usage of article for "hospital"

[nq:1]This was from a London website:[/nq]
[nq:2]CHAOS AT IKEA OPENING Five people are in hospital today ... opening of England's biggest Ikea store turned into a riot.[/nq]
[nq:1]Is "in hospital" correct or is it vogue usage? It sounds funny to me.I'd still rather say "in the hospital". I've seen this in American writing, so it isn't just a British thing.[/nq]
But when used by an Amer

[nq:1]This was from a London website:[/nq]
[nq:2]CHAOS AT IKEA OPENING Five people are in hospital today ... opening of England's biggest Ikea store turned into a riot.[/nq]
[nq:1]Is "in hospital" correct or is it vogue usage? It sounds funny to me.I'd still rather say "in the hospital". I've seen this in American writing, so it isn't just a British thing.[/nq]
In the US, we say, "goin

[nq:1]This was from a London website:[/nq]
[nq:2]CHAOS AT IKEA OPENING Five people are in hospital today ... opening of England's biggest Ikea store turned into a riot.[/nq]
[nq:1]Is "in hospital" correct or is it vogue usage? It sounds funny to me. I'd still rather say "in the hospital".[/nq]
That would mean that all five went to the same hospital.

Mike

[nq:1]x writes[/nq]
[nq:2]This was from a London website: Is "in hospital" correct ... funny to me. I'd still rather say "in the hospital".[/nq]
[nq:1]That would mean that all five went to the same hospital.[/nq]
Well, yeah, and if it were important to indicate that they were not in the same hosiptal, I'd write, "Five people are in hospitals today ...".
Skitt (in Hayward, Californ

[nq:1]This was from a London website:[/nq]
[nq:2]CHAOS AT IKEA OPENING Five people are in hospital today ... opening of England's biggest Ikea store turned into a riot.[/nq]
[nq:1]Is "in hospital" correct or is it vogue usage? It sounds funny to me. I'd still rather say "in the hospital". I've seen this in American writing, so it isn't just a British thing.[/nq]
Several of these otherp

[nq:1]This was from a London website:[/nq]
[nq:2]CHAOS AT IKEA OPENING Five people are in hospital today ... opening of England's biggest Ikea store turned into a riot.[/nq]
[nq:1]Is "in hospital" correct or is it vogue usage? It sounds funny to me. I'd still rather say "in the hospital". I've seen this in American writing, so it isn't just a British thing.[/nq]
In America, "hospital"

[nq:2]This was from a London website: Is "in hospital" correct ... funny to me. I'd still rather say "in the hospital".[/nq]
[nq:1]That would mean that all five went to the same hospital.[/nq]
Not necessarily. All five are in the hospital system, rather than any particular hospital, hence the lack of a definite article. That's how I think of it, anyway.
Also, in these parts, whe

[nq:2]This was from a London website: Is "in hospital" correct ... in American writing, so it isn't just a British thing.[/nq]
[nq:1]In America, "hospital" is like airport. Elsewhere, "hospital" is like church. Nowhere have I heard people say "I'm going to ... (eg the one where my wife is a patient), where the listener is presumed to know which one is meant.[/nq]
In SA would you say "that

[nq:1]Several of these otherpondly phrases are becoming more used in the US "When I was at university", for example. In "Blazing Saddles", there was the Harvey Korman line "Chewing gum on line, eh?"[/nq]
But that line always causes a moment's adjustment for BrE users. When "line" is used for "queue" here, as it sometimes is, the BrE preposition is "in". Note that, in my experience, Br people c

[nq:2]Several of these otherpondly phrases are becoming more used in ... was the Harvey Korman line "Chewing gum on line, eh?"[/nq]
[nq:1]But that line always causes a moment's adjustment for BrE users. When "line" is used for "queue" here, as it ... some kind of statistical line drawn across an ordered list of incomes, rather than visualizing a queue for a handout.[/nq]
Amazing. I speak A