To loathe the gradual creep of "gotten " as accepted English

[BonnyDay]

In this country ?

[geegee888]

Well im in Scotland and have never heard gotten used here anywhere from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, or north or west thereof. Not once.

'a've goat', with a gutterel t, would be more likely...

Surely the whole problem with gotten is that its a verb which has never been particularly correct in English anyway? Its better to say 'i have'' 'im having' etc..

Thee, Rhine, Thu, etc has never fallen out of use in some parts of Yorkshire, and they are actually more correct useage than the universal personal pronoun and its definitives. And in some parts of the west country til recent years, some used the old Saxon 'bist du' for 'are you'. So I don't think gotten is being favoured for particularly old English usrage reasons - its revival coincides with popular us sitcoms!

[geegee888]

Thee, thine, thou

[THETrills]

YABU

You use "forgotten", don't you?

[JeezyOrangePips]

Well I'm in Scotland and there are many people here (north of Aberdeen) that do use it. Including me.

Not experiencing something personally is not evidence that it doesn't happen.

[ByTheWay1]

• gotten never really went out of use in some areas - perhaps it was turfed out of "Queen's English" but not by common folks.....
  

We are experimenting at the moment with "new " words and have introduced "squozen" to our friends - freeze/frozen, squeeze/squozen - it has reached the friends of a friend stage!!

So we drink freshly squozen orange juice - sets pedants off like rockets!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

I am perfectly happy with 'gotten', but I am pretty that it's not in 'Old English'. It is Middle English. I am sure it can be traced back to an OE/ON form, but it won't be the same word.

On a related note, 'Old English' doesn't mean 'Shakespeare and everything around that time'. It means pre-1066.

Do I win the annoying pedant prize?

[NellyJob]

lol deffo

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

[MrsReiver]

geegee I think you're right that "ahv goat" is more widely used, but I can assure you that "gotten" is alive in well in Scotland.

[TheBigJessie]

"Bist du"? That's freaking awesome.

[JeezyOrangePips]

'bist du' - where is am we say 'is du' - close!

[NeedToSleepZZZ]

LDR As a former English teacher, I think I love you. 'Gotten' is not only perfectly acceptable but serves a very useful purpose in its role to distinguish the tense the speaker is using.

I recommend reading the complete back catalogue 'Made In America' by the mighty Bill Bryson for other examples of the evolution of English and supposed Americanisms.

[gordyslovesheep]

YANBU - my dd2 has taken to saying 'hadded' which makes me want to drown her as in 'at school we HADDED to draw some fish'

I refuse to acknowledge it and make her repeat it until she says had to - she hates me

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Aw, thank you!

It just drives me mad because I study Middle English and people nod knowingly and say 'oh, yeah, like Old English, like in Shakespeare'.

[dementedma]

Never heard gotten used in this part of Scotland! Am central and haven't heard anyone use it at all.

[valiumredhead]

'Ill gotten gains?'

Snuck makes me want to punch someone. Hard.

[geegee888]

Needtosleep - should it not be I have got, you have gotten. Not I've gotten. As gotten is plural? Because in Dutch, which is also derived from the same common route, you say ik heb (I have), juillie hebben (you (people)) have? You don't say ik hebben, which would be the equivalent of I've gotten...

Bist du - imagine it on a Dorset accent...

[geegee888]

Oh damn posting on a mobile phone for correctnesss...

[TheBigJessie]

This may seem pedantic, but there is no just thing as "a most annoying pedant prize" in discussions about words.

There is only "most helpful pedant" and "most well-informed pedant".

LDR wins both.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

You are too kind.

[TheBigJessie]

I am really looking forward to my next argument on whether English is a Germanic language now. No, I don't know how I end up trying to explain that not all European languages are Romances. It just happens.

[FrozenFlowers]

Scottish Corpus

a search for gotten

So some people in Scotland have definitely been using it - it's not just me. I live in Edinburgh (although I'm not from here originally) and I definitely hear it used.

[gordyslovesheep]

Bist du is German / Bavarian - still used in an informal manner

[SwedishEdith]

I like gotten and snuck and I think I prefer ize because I like the letter z.

The other day, my eldest said "I've just blunk"

[ByTheWay1]

SwedishEdith - I love blunk!!

When we are playing with silly words