"Government are...(or is)?"

No offense, but I think nothing bothers me about British English except for y’alls lack of collective nouns. I like the commentary about its prevalence in every language in “takeourword.com”.
PS “maths” bothers me too. I have no good reason. Even reading it makes my skin crawl.
PPS I don’t understand how I come from a family of immigrants yet I’m a curmudgeon.

I guess because mathmatics has an ‘s’ . Unless ya’ll doin’ mathmatic over there.

[quote=“Woodchild”]I always thought that we use zero article when we talk about institutions such as hospital, university, prison…etc. being used for their intended pupose: medical treatment in hospital, therefore. And we use articles when we talk about them as particular places or buildings.

He has to stay in hospital for 2 weeks.
He goes to the hospital to see his friend every day.

Same rule applies to bed.

I stayed in bed till late yesterday.
I put my books on the bed and forgot about them.

So there is nothing wrong in saying “The victims were taken to hospital.”

Maybe I misunderstood your meaning, pui. If so please let me know.[/quote]
Depends on where you’re from.

Institutions like “college”, “school”, “church” and “temple” (especially for Jews) function is the same way in all English-speaking nations (as far as I’m aware). However, Americans do not do this with “hospital” or “university”.

“I graduated from university” and “I was taken to hospital” are not said by Americans (indeed, they sound quite strange to American ears), but are said by Brits, Australians, etc. Don’t know about Canadians.

Do Brits study “mathsematic”?