[dylan604]

I've heard the phrase "I've got the cancer". As if there's only one cancer to get, and everyone will know of it.

Then again, the English say "I'm going to hospital" where an American would say "I'm going to the hospital", so maybe the Bard used up all of the (how do you pluralize the??) so that the English use it less? At least the TFA author might theorize as such.

[porknubbins]

As a US English speaker "I'm going to hospital" sounds a little bit off in that British English excessively sophisticated way. But then I realized that most of the time if you're sick the main thing is you're going to the institution to get treatment, not trying to specify which location you are going to. Its almost like if we went around saying "I go to the school" or "I'm in the college" which sounds pretty dumb.

[dylan604]

In that American English way, "I'm going to ____" has a different meaning if the following word is a noun or verb. So reading "hospital" as a verb really distorts that meaning. "How does one hospital?" In Texas, "going to" is pretty much always assumed about to go to a place where "going to" as in about to do something is solved by using "fixin' to" ;-)

[lisper]

It depends on the disease. You have the measles, or the mumps, or the flu, or a cold.