Headline from some paper in Oz:

Slapped Iraqi soldier shoots dead two US troops

Jesus, I hate that. The word “troop” is technically defined as soldiers or armed forces, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely interchangeable with “soldiers” or “armed forces personnel”. You can have “a soldier” or “a member of the US Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines”, but you cannot have “a troop” to mean one person. Two members of some branch of the armed forces…still neither a troop, nor troops. Three or more, okay, I’ll give you that, I suppose, but that is the bare minimum. “50 000 US troops,” fine. Three US troops…pushing it, and there’s surely a better way to say it, like “Three members of the US armed forces” or “Three US Marines.” It isn’t just this one publication from Oz, either; they all do it now.

Fuck off with using “troop” because you obviously don’t know how to spell “soldier” or can’t be arsed to type “members of the (insert branch here)”. It sounds illiterate and it pisses me off.

Heil Grammar Check! 😀