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When did it become "correct" to refer to a single soldier as a troop?[edit]
It is not correct to refer to a single soldier as a “troop.” Insofar as a single soldier is called a “troop,” this is improper slang and misleading. Whenever “troop” is used as a singular term, it should refer to a single unit of soldiers, scouts, apes, baboons, or lemurs; never to a single soldier, scout, ape, baboon, or lemur.
If someone asks, “How many troops attended the jamboree?” it would not be improper to respond, “Only one troop attended, consisting of fifteen boy scouts.” It would, conversely, be incorrect to say that fifteen troops attended if all fifteen boy scouts are members of the same boy scout troop. The same rule applies to soldiers.
Thus, if a troop consisting of fifteen soldiers is killed in a military strike, the media would be correct to report that one troop was killed or that fifteen soldiers were killed. But, if the media report that fifteen troops were killed, this would be misleading, as it would imply that fifteen whole units of soldiers had been killed. allixpeeke (talk) 23:07, 27 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is wrong to refer to individual soldiers, scouts, etc, as troops. However, this is the norm in the media and military today. I wish they were refered to as soldiers, personnel or GI's. The term "troops" to refer to individual soldiers seemed to appear about the time of Desert Storm. Flight Risk (talk) 21:24, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note that this noncollective use of "troops" as a synonym of soldiers usually isn't used in the singular, referring to one individual soldier as "a troop", but such usage has been recorded, as cited here. See also Talk:Troop. --83.255.55.91 (talk) 09:40, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
