[tragomaskhalos]

See also:

- He is in hospital

versus

- He is in the pub

Does this mean any hospital vs a specific pub? No! It's just the idiom, and you have to get a feel for it. On the plus side, it's these sort of crazy nuances that help make email scams more detectable.

[jfk13]

It can be either "in hospital" or "in the hospital"; this tends to be a regional difference. UK English prefers without "the", while US English is likely to include it.

"in pub", on the other hand, would never be right.

[wl]

"Likely" is not a strong enough word here. In US English, "in hospital" without the "the" is a grating error.

[jfk13]

You're probably right, but I wasn't sure if there might be some regional variation even within the US.

In contrast, if you asked where my son is and I replied that "he's in school", I think that'd be fine, wouldn't it? Or "in prison"? (Well, that would be less fine, but not for grammatical reasons...)

[Jcampuzano2]

Yeah both of those responses would be correct and how I would answer as a native speaker. Though depending on the context I would likely say "at school" vs "in school" as my default response.

US native English speaker, so this may depend somewhat on what variety of English is being used.

[ryanf]

Yes, in US English you'd say "in school", "in prison", but "in the hospital", for whatever reason. But you'd say "in hospice".

[kevin_b_er]

These are craftier meanings, at least in US English.

"in school" often means you're a student (primary, secondary, or post-secondary school) in general. "He's still in school" can mean either he hasn't finished learning for the day(and thus not home yet or such) or that his education isn't finished.(X more years of standard mandatory education or X more years of University to finish) But it can also mean you're actively engaged in the activity, which I think I've heard people even use for remote-learning, though I don't feel that good about using it for remote-learning.

But if you say you're "in the school" you deliberately mean the educational building.

"in prison" sort of does the same thing, but since someone is locked up in prison and unable to leave, the distinction is much more rare. Let's say you're on the chain gang on the side of the road, even though they're really rare now. You're still "in prison". If you said you were "in the prison", now you're not currently working a chain gang on the side of the road, but actively in a prison building.