Law23 mins ago
gotten it all wrong?
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Back in the sixties when I started learning English as a second language we were taught to use the word 'gotten' for instance in a sentence like "Has it gotten any better?" It wasn't really until I started visiting this site some years ago that I noticed Brits don't seem to use 'gotten' today. Have you dropped it and if so when, or was our teacher influenced by American English?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I'd forgotten about 'ill-gotten' gains! So obviously is olde english!!
http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/gotten.htm
http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/gotten.htm
Swedeheart, you'll find other examples of Americans using words, and forms of verbs, which are obsolete in British English.Some are thought by us to be words invented by Americans but are no more than words which settlers took with them from England long ago and which we no longer use;' faucet' for tap is one such. Verb forms include 'gotten' and 'dove' (for ' dived'). They also like 'atop' for 'on' (as 'on top of'). which is one which seems our loss, and redux (meaning revisited, revived , repeated after a long absence, as with a play performed for the first time after years of not being performed) and others.
They're really an old-fashioned people !
They're really an old-fashioned people !
fredpuli, thanks - I've always wondered what 'redux' means! Never gotten arou- ...erm, sorry: Never got round to looking it up.
We (in Sweden) get lots of films and television series both English and American and I've never been able to settle for one of the languages when speaking myself. I've noticed that I even mix accents deliberately within the same sentence, as if to say "I AM a foreigner you know, please treat me as such and speak slowly when addressing me".
But even if I didn't want to do that on purpose, sometimes it would still be very difficult to remember which language is which, especially with words that not only look the same but are also semantically close to each other in both languages, like 'purse'. Not to mention 'pants'. I remember saying on a thread that I'd better go and put some pants on before cleaning the windows. Yeah it was strongly recommended that I did...! (I meant trousers.)
We (in Sweden) get lots of films and television series both English and American and I've never been able to settle for one of the languages when speaking myself. I've noticed that I even mix accents deliberately within the same sentence, as if to say "I AM a foreigner you know, please treat me as such and speak slowly when addressing me".
But even if I didn't want to do that on purpose, sometimes it would still be very difficult to remember which language is which, especially with words that not only look the same but are also semantically close to each other in both languages, like 'purse'. Not to mention 'pants'. I remember saying on a thread that I'd better go and put some pants on before cleaning the windows. Yeah it was strongly recommended that I did...! (I meant trousers.)
The Oxford English Dictionary says of 'got'..."Shortened past participle of get; see gotten," so 'gotten' was the original format. It predates 'got' by about three centuries. It is, as already said above, largely an Americanism nowadays; however, when I was a lad in the North-East of Scotland quite a few decades ago - certainly not thirty of them! - 'gotten' was perfectly common in Doric, the dialect of that part of Britain.
For example, "Ah've gotten 'e Beano. Hiv ee gotten ane?" (I've got the Beano. Have you got one?)
Perhaps someone currently living in or around Aberdeen can confirm whether this is still normal. Certainly our teachers would never have approved, but everybody did it regardless. The point is, 'gotten' was certainly in use here in Britain within living memory and may well still be.
For example, "Ah've gotten 'e Beano. Hiv ee gotten ane?" (I've got the Beano. Have you got one?)
Perhaps someone currently living in or around Aberdeen can confirm whether this is still normal. Certainly our teachers would never have approved, but everybody did it regardless. The point is, 'gotten' was certainly in use here in Britain within living memory and may well still be.