Miscellany

[magid]

This morning on the radio, the announcer caught himself and revised "soldiers" to "troops" (as in "In Iraq, three troops were injured today as..."). Is there any difference? I mean, I know what a soldier is, a unit of one. "Troop", however, is much less specific (a quick check shows that indeed, troop refers to a collection of [soldiers/ boy scouts/ dragoons/ animals]). When did the troop = soldier equivalency begin? And why?

I didn't have time at the Butcherie this morning to look at all the amazing (and sometimes scary) Passover products that are in (I'm not surprised that there are not only cake and brownie mixes, but pancake mix, muffin mix, and rugelach mix. I suspect I can live an entire eight days without rugelach, which is likely sub-par rugelach, too.). I did get some "Real Vegetarian Liver" (eggplant based, not vegan due to eggs). I'm curious if any regular chopped liver is labeled "Fake Vegetarian Liver", or if that's reserved for another product.
edit: I'd forgotten about another Passover product I'd not seen before: honey beer. Er, yeah.

It looks like the snow has stopped, temporarily. The slowness of snowfall has meant it never turned into a major weather event, but having had a taste of spring (I'd even spotted a few early crocuses and snowdrops blooming), I'm ready for clear skies again.

There are more songbirds about. Yesterday I saw a number of different small ones, plus the ever-obvious cardinal, easy to spot in his red coloring against the drap empty trees and white snow. [Yes, mitre and all. *grin*]

I'll be offline from tonight until Monday. Have a good weekend and happy equinox.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

The primary definition of soldier is member of an army, but the secondary definition is an enlisted person or noncom officer, which I think would apply to any branch of the service (though my military knowledge is quite small, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong).

Colloquially, at least, I'd think 'soldier' would be an easier map onto 'member of the armed forces' than 'troop' would be, in all its collective nounity (nounality? nounation? nounosity? 'nounness' uses too few different letters for my taste :-)

[autographedcat.livejournal.com]

I think the key issue is this.

"soldier" conjures up a specific image of a person.

"troop" is, somehow, more abstract and less personal.

Basically, it's the same sort of logic behind referring to casualties as "inoperative combat units".