Gramer Girl here, I'm Minion Fogarty.

This week I have a quick-inter及 tip about the two spellings of trooper.

In a meeting middle, about a bunch of fun phrases that used the word B, including why we call

it a spelling B.

Let's get started.

After the recent segment about why the word trooper can refer to one person or a group of

people, a listener named Michael asked whether it's possible that since a trooper is another

name for a soldier, that the singular use of troop for one soldier came from shortening

the word trooper to trooper.

Well, the first use of troop is a word to refer to just one soldier, came hundreds of years

after people started calling units of soldiers' troops.

And Michael's instincts are right.

The Oxford English Dictionary entry for troop as a singular noun says that in some cases

it is, quote, perhaps an abbreviation of trooper, unquote.

And this also brings us to a related topic, the difference between trooper spelled TRO-P-E-R

and trooper spelled TRO-U-P-E-R.

Both words came into English from French words for a company or a band of people, but they

came into English at different times and they developed different meanings in English.

All around the English-speaking world troopers TRO-O-P-E-R-S are police or military men and

women on horseback.

And in the United States, trooper also refers to state police officers.

For example, you'd say, I got a ticket from a state trooper last week.

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