We just want to remind people that the word &8220;troop&8221; refers to a group of soldiers. Or &8212; outside the military &8212; it can refer to a group of Girl Scouts or musicians and so on.

But it does not refer to a singular soldier. Anyone who served in the military knows that. If you say &8220;troop,&8221; you are refering to a unit. If you say &8220;troops,&8221; you are referring to multiple units.

Commentator Andy Rooney from CBS-TV&8217;s &8220;60 Minutes&8221; also likes to remind viewers of this. Thank you, Andy.

We bring his up because President Bush this week said:

&8220;We stand united in saying loud and clear that when we&8217;ve got a troop in harm&8217;s way, we expect that troop to be fully funded; and we&8217;ve got commanders making tough decisions on the ground, we expect there to be no strings on our commanders; and that we expect the Congress to be wise about how they spend the people&8217;s money.&8221;

Now some might hear this and either assume he refered to a single soldier in his example, but he likely referred to a single unit: a troop. His use of troop was proper, in that sense.

It was after the president&8217;s speech when suddenly we saw and heard people &8212; mostly online &8212; misusing that word.

Not that the use of the word is a big deal in the grand scheme of a war, but it can be bothersome and perhaps disrespectful to hear the term misused by so many people so often. Like Rooney has on occasion, we felt the need to point it out.