I think I'll take holiday on train...

What's the deal with the British (or those who deem themselves to be well-traveled) leaving "the" off of certain terminology? Example: "I need to go to Hospital," or, "My daughter's off to University!"

What? When did this start happening? And why is it creeping in to every-day American programming? Such as, "House, you'd better get this patient to hospital, fast!" Is it really THAT much harder to throw a little "the" in there? Oh, and what's up with deleting "vacation" from our vocabulary? "Bill, where are you going to be next week?" "Oh, I've decided to go on holiday."

Is that right? Are you going to fly there on airplane, or in car? Perhaps you'll need to take subway to airport, talk to ticket agent, get scanned by x-ray machine, walk to gate, and climb on DC-10. When you arrive at seat, be sure to click seatbelt together, look at newspaper, and start holiday early by flagging down stewardess and having stiff drink. (Ok, I took liberties there -- I left out "a", but I figure why not since eventually, we're going to throw a few more words out. Just contributing to good cause.)

What Hell are people thinking?