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

[BonnyDay]

In this country ?

I'm puzzling too much over it now! It just sounds wrong unless you use it as a plural for a number of people - 'they've gotten' for example. And even then, why would you use it instead of 'they had'?

Also, how can it have been correct in middle English when they had 'begot' at their disposal - I heb gehad in Dutch, I begot in middle English surely?

gordys which is why next time, they have to listen to me! I mean, it has to go down better than my verb tables. It's a more concise demonstration!

I'm Irish and view gotten as a perfectly valid past participle of get and my rather pedantic English DP agrees with me. The example he suggested was "I have gotten a flat tyre" to mean I've had a flat tyre in the past but no longer have it versus "I have got a flat tyre" to mean I currently have a flat tyre.

Actually, I've got a better example. How would the people who don't agree with gotten phrase this sentence? "I used to be annoyed by my neighbours' loud music but I've gotten used to it".

gee - 'begot' doesn't mean the same as 'gotten', though. 'Begot' has to do with fathering.

Hmm. Perhaps it is the case that it is recently becoming more common in BrEnglish (outside of dialects and 'ill-gotten'), but I'm afraid my first instinct is to be sceptical about this without seeing some actual data for it. People's impressions of what is new in a language or is in the early stage of increase are often unreliable because it's a well-known selective attention effect - just because you have only just started noticing something, you think it's new, when in fact it's been widespread for some time. Then because you are paying more attention to it, you notice it more frequently, and conclude that it really is on the increase - when in fact any one person's experience is too small and biased a sample of language to draw sound conclusions about wide-scale change.

I just had a look at the full OED entries for 'gotten' and 'get' and it says that Webster 1864 gave 'gotten' as "obsolescent". But again, that's a subjective impression. I would want to see corpus data to see when/if it started picking up frequency in BrEnglish.

Also worth considering that 'gotten' in AmEnglish is used in a different range of contexts to 'have got': it's used for senses including causation, acquisition, becoming, movement - it's only for non-possessive senses. So it actually expands the range of senses in which 'get' can be used.

Also, languages innovate, and we all need to get over it.

queen - ahh, but don't pedantic snobs reckon that 'got' is a word you should avoid anyway? So it'd be 'I used to be annoyed ... but I've become used to it'. You couldn't say 'I've got used to it' with elegance, I agree.

geegee it's strange but I think the use of 'gotten' with the first person depends on the rhythm of the utterance if that makes sense? I have reached the same conclusion regarding our use or overuse of 'get' in general, i.e., why say 'I've got a headache.' when 'I have a headache.' will suffice?

But can you use the words "I've become" without sounding a bit pretentious?

Are we saying it should be used as the past participle? "I've gotten a new coat?"

I would never use that!

I am not certain the kind of pedantic snobs I'm thinking of mind about sounding a bit pretentious!

In fact, their teeth (mutual) are probably on edge at the misplaced 'of' in the above sentence.

I think 'gotten' provides a nice variation but basically, IMO, the point of using a variety of words is to add nuance and precision, not to show what a fantastically accurate prescriptive grammarian you can be, just for the sake of it.

Hang on, I posted too soon.

I would never say "I've got", I would say "I have".

Although I do use squoze as the past tense of squeeze.

But does that not suggest a slightly different activity/time description? (I don't know the technical terms).

'I have a new coat' - could mean you've had it for a while, or since last Tuesday; could mean someone gave it to you or you bought it.

'I've gotten a new coat' - I've acquired it recently; I went out and got it.

Or not? I'm not sure really, just thinking why there's still IMO a place for 'gotten'.

I don't think anyone would argue for that Scatter. I'm arguing for something like "It's been a long time since I've gotten a new coat" being perfectly acceptable.

So got remains objectional in the English language? So why lengthen it and use it randomly without a tense?

Lrd - I don't think the use begot was always limited to the fathering of children. i think its more a case that late middle English lost its verb suffixes, along the time that thee, Thy and thou stopped being used (outside Yorkshire).

LDR I think the example of the coat is a case of emphasis. In the first sentence I would think the stress was on the new coat whereas in the second the stress would be on the getting or purchase of said coat.

I wouldn't use 'got' in academic/formal writing, no. But that is because it is a poor bastardized half-verb, because 'gotten' has become archaic, so it doesn't exist in all of the correct forms.

gee - maybe so, but thee, thy and thou drop out of language much later than medieval, so I am not sure about that. Begot in ME refers to fathering in the Bible translations IIRC.

Needtosleep - I love both Made in America and Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which are a celebration of the richness and variety of the English language. Why would you want to lock down a language when it is capable of such expressiveness? I enjoy the fact that when you listen to a Geordie, say, it can sound as if they're speaking Danish rather than English.

Mind you, having been sniffy about 'gotten' not being Old English, I am now struggling to think of a medieval English sentence with 'gotten' in it and drawing a complete blank.

Sorry, I meant LRD [apologetic face]

hack - ohh, yes, Geordie is so cool! Not related really, but I heard that someone did DNA analysis on a group of Geordies and found they are very, very close to modern-day Danes. Much closer than you'd expect.

hackmum I agree, language is such a fascinating subject but at the core of it its function is to communicate meaning and we are blessed to have such a choice in how we choose to express ourselves.

I'm from NZ originally and gotten was in use there when I was younger especially by older people. I still use it myself sometimes e.g. "I've gone and gotten a cold ". I also use brought instead of take as in "I brought my kids along with me today because DH was being an arse and I couldn't leave them at home by themselves" time thing.

Perhaps it's not such an Americanism as a "Colonialism" and it's now coming back to bite you on the arse.

My ire is reserved for the terms playdates and sleepovers instead of coming to play and staying the night!

(Not that I imagine it's very interesting, but I checked and the Wycliffite Bible - ie., late fourteenth century English - does used 'bigetan' (=begotten) for fathering, as in 'only begotten son'. Whether you could use it in other contexts I dunno, since my mind has gone completely blank).