Gotten

[WinniePig]

I’ve noticed many Americans using the term “gotten” and assumed it’s American English. Fine. But it’s not a word I would associate with good grammar on this side of the pond. Anyway, I’ve read a number of threads on here recently where the OP has written “gotten” in their original post (and each time I see it I shudder). Even worse…the dodgy verb crops up in this news article on the BBC (third para from end). The BBC (holds head in hands).

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-60789542

AIBU to despair at how this horrible little verb is infecting the English language…

Brits who have suddenly started to use it generally do so wrongly in the present tense.

Can someone give an example of the "incorrect" usage of gotten that is referred to here?

I think I've always said it. I think.
I'm from Lancashire. My granny who I spent every day with was Scottish. Don't know if any of that is relevant.

English has evolved from many languages, and things change, I love the fact the French word for pet, is animal of companionship, defines animal as pet or working.
I dislike gotten, had or to have sounds better

@angelikacpickles

Brits who have suddenly started to use it generally do so wrongly in the present tense.

Can someone give an example of the "incorrect" usage of gotten that is referred to here?

I have forgotten (singular past tense) - correct I forgot (singular present tense) -correct We forget (plural present tense) - correct We forgot (plural past tense) - correct

I got (singular present tense) - correct
I have gotten (singular past tense) - correct
I've gotten (singular abbreviated past tense) - correct
We have gotten (plural past tense) - correct
I've gotten used in the English-imported-wrongly-from-American-English way to mean in the present tense - incorrect

@SucculentChalice Wrong. You are misinformed. I've gotten used to mean in the present tense - is correct. It is tradition olde British English.

@SucculentChalice - I still don't understand how it's being used incorrectly. Can you give an example?

You either get it or you don't. I've given plenty of examples for those who can pick up on the fine distinctions here. You can also google it if you don't believe me. But you need to understand how word endings change in Germanic languages for different tenses and how English has partly lost those, and also how it has lost some of its suffixes and prefixes, but by no means all.

Its easier if you speak another language where you have learned the grammatical rules in the traditional way.

@SucculentChalice

You either get it or you don't. I've given plenty of examples for those who can pick up on the fine distinctions here. You can also google it if you don't believe me. But you need to understand how word endings change in Germanic languages for different tenses and how English has partly lost those, and also how it has lost some of its suffixes and prefixes, but by no means all.

Its easier if you speak another language where you have learned the grammatical rules in the traditional way.

You cannot use the rules of other languages for British English. It does not work like that. I suggest you speak to a Professor of English Literature at your local university who can explain it to you. You are wrong, it's that simple.

@SucculentChalice

You either get it or you don't. I've given plenty of examples for those who can pick up on the fine distinctions here. You can also google it if you don't believe me. But you need to understand how word endings change in Germanic languages for different tenses and how English has partly lost those, and also how it has lost some of its suffixes and prefixes, but by no means all.

Its easier if you speak another language where you have learned the grammatical rules in the traditional way.

You haven't given an example. You just said I've gotten used in the English-imported-wrongly-from-American-English way to mean in the present tense - incorrect

If you put some actual words after "I've gotten" I'm sure I'd get what you mean.

You haven't given any relevant examples, SucculentChalice. Everyone here is a fluent speaker of English and it's the first language of most posters. So we're all well able to pick up any fine distinctions you make.

Gotten not only is right, it sounds right.

I have got - sounds very stilted and abrupt, a bit like broken English.

I have gotten - flows well and sounds like proper English.

I did notice many people used "I have got" or "I've got" when I first arrived on this site, and it was very jarring. So very jarring and 'made my teeth itch', to use a Mumsnet term. I continually wanted to grammar correct those and say "it is gotten!". I'm glad others are seeing that 'got' is lazy and incorrect grammar, that gotten is the correct form. I am surprised at how many people on here didn't realise this.

Migrainesbythedozen You cannot use the rules of other languages for British English. It does not work like that. I suggest you speak to a Professor of English Literature at your local university who can explain it to you. You are wrong, it's that simple.

I'm not "using rules of other languages" - please don't make things up to suit your narrative. I'm using standard grammatical rules relating to past and present tenses. Although its not as if they are uniformly taught in Britain, so I'm not sure why asking a professor of English literature would be relevant. Perhaps a professor of English grammar might like to answer questions from non-students a little more, although its equally unlikely. This is school level stuff, not university level. You must be able to distinguish between tenses in your own language in order to do so in other languages.

Ochon If you put some actual words after "I've gotten" I'm sure I'd get what you mean

"I've gotten a new hat" - meaning that I have already acquired a new hat. Its in the past.

"I've got a new hat" - meaning I've literally just acquired a new hat. Or at least its the present imperfect tense. You don't know exactly when the hat was acquired, but you do know from the grammatical tense used that it was fairly recent. With gotten, its less recent and definitely not in the present.

Or to put it another way, "got" is the verb, "ten" is the stem which indicates the tense. If you don't need to indicate that it was in the past then you don't use the "ten" suffix indicating the past tense or past imperfect/imperative.

@Migrainesbythedozen

Gotten not only is right, it sounds right.

I have got - sounds very stilted and abrupt, a bit like broken English.

I have gotten - flows well and sounds like proper English.

I did notice many people used "I have got" or "I've got" when I first arrived on this site, and it was very jarring. So very jarring and 'made my teeth itch', to use a Mumsnet term. I continually wanted to grammar correct those and say "it is gotten!". I'm glad others are seeing that 'got' is lazy and incorrect grammar, that gotten is the correct form. I am surprised at how many people on here didn't realise this.

"got" sounds awkward or stilted because its lost its prefix and "gotten" makes it acquire a suffix. So with its prefix in older speech it would have been "I have begot" rather than modern "I got".

@SucculentChalice

Migrainesbythedozen You cannot use the rules of other languages for British English. It does not work like that. I suggest you speak to a Professor of English Literature at your local university who can explain it to you. You are wrong, it's that simple.

I'm not "using rules of other languages" - please don't make things up to suit your narrative. I'm using standard grammatical rules relating to past and present tenses. Although its not as if they are uniformly taught in Britain, so I'm not sure why asking a professor of English literature would be relevant. Perhaps a professor of English grammar might like to answer questions from non-students a little more, although its equally unlikely. This is school level stuff, not university level. You must be able to distinguish between tenses in your own language in order to do so in other languages.

Ochon If you put some actual words after "I've gotten" I'm sure I'd get what you mean

"I've gotten a new hat" - meaning that I have already acquired a new hat. Its in the past.

"I've got a new hat" - meaning I've literally just acquired a new hat. Or at least its the present imperfect tense. You don't know exactly when the hat was acquired, but you do know from the grammatical tense used that it was fairly recent. With gotten, its less recent and definitely not in the present.

Or to put it another way, "got" is the verb, "ten" is the stem which indicates the tense. If you don't need to indicate that it was in the past then you don't use the "ten" suffix indicating the past tense or past imperfect/imperative.

I'm still confused as your examples really don't use enough words to clearly show what you're trying to say.

What I think you mean is "I've gotten a new hat" is something that happened in the past e.g. I've gotten a new hat every year for my birthday. So are you saying that people are using gotten to mean that they currently have a hat e.g. I've gotten a hat now? I've never heard it used that way.

So am I understanding you correctly?

Ochon If you put some actual words after "I've gotten" I'm sure I'd get what you mean.

Got to me would mean something very recent, ie there and then or that day, whereas gotten to me would mean something that happened in the past.

In other words, I wouldn't be sure whether something that had been gotten was that recent an acquisition or not. I would assume it meant in the past unless the context implied something different to me. It wouldn't add meaning, it would reduce it.

Got to me means something more immediate. I'm British, but not English, from a heavily Scandinavian influenced dialect area. I don't use dialect myself although I understand it perfectly well. To my ear, southern English has lost a lot of distinctions that some other dialects retain.

@SucculentChalice

Ochon If you put some actual words after "I've gotten" I'm sure I'd get what you mean.

Got to me would mean something very recent, ie there and then or that day, whereas gotten to me would mean something that happened in the past.

In other words, I wouldn't be sure whether something that had been gotten was that recent an acquisition or not. I would assume it meant in the past unless the context implied something different to me. It wouldn't add meaning, it would reduce it.

Got to me means something more immediate. I'm British, but not English, from a heavily Scandinavian influenced dialect area. I don't use dialect myself although I understand it perfectly well. To my ear, southern English has lost a lot of distinctions that some other dialects retain.

But got does not necessarily mean recent. E.g. I got a present when I was born.

To me, I got = I received it at a specific time in the past.
I have gotten = I received it at an unspecified time in the past.

I have got = I currently have something at this moment in time.

@Palavah

YABU

Its use in British English predates the colonisation of America, which is why it features in American English, though it subsequently fell out of favour in British English.

This. I also just think "gotten" sounds nice, personally

@SimpleShootingWeekend

YAB Ridiculous. It’s an English word. Even if it was American, that’s no reason to shudder and compare it to a virus. Ditto Mom, another English word that induces sneery posts by untraveled people who imply that others watch far too much low brow television. Only 6 months until the Hallowe’en threads where it will again be pointed out that the whole of the UK does not live in, and draw their language and culture from, the South East of England.

My West Midlands-dwelling friends are always irritated by people ignorantly asserting that only Americans say mom!

Got to me would mean something very recent, ie there and then or that day, whereas gotten to me would mean something that happened in the past.

I don't think this is the way the verb is used in general SucculentChalice.
I'm not an expert in this at all, but afaik gotten can be used in the present perfect (to indicate an action that started in the past and continues to have consequences in the present) as well as in the past perfect (to indicate a time in the past that lasted to another time in the past).

So present perfect = The child has gotten so big, hasn't she?

Past perfect = It had gotten wetter and wetter all through the winter, but thankfully the weather had improved again with the coming of spring.

Got is also the simple past tense of the verb, not the present tense, as I think you said upthread

Got is more widely used in the UK in place of gotten in the examples above - it's not wrong, Migranesbythedozen, but neither is gotten. Their frequency of use varies by dialect, that's all.

I grew up with “gotten” in Canada. It never occurred to me there could be another way, until my British MIL told me how much she hates “gotten”. It now holds a special pleasure and delight for me. 😁

@ClinkeyMonkey

'I was sat' isn't used here in NI, but I appreciate it's commonly used elsewhere. It does sound 'wrong' to my ears. 'I was sitting' is the phrase I was taught. 'I was sat' used to get on my nerves, especially when someone on a knitting forum (all language experts there of course!) corrected my use of 'I was sitting' (sitting knitting) but I'm used to hearing it now and have decided, in my obviously very very important opinion, that it is acceptable.

Ooo okay this one is fascinating me - I can't imagine saying anything other than "I was sat" never knew this was a thing!

YABU and also parochial.

It's an older form of the verb which hasn't completely died out in the UK or Ireland.

@SucculentChalice

I hate everything about the word "gotten", but particularly when the stating-the-obvious types pop up to point out for the trillioneth time that its an American older form of English.

Yes, but Americans use it correctly as the past tense that it always was here before language moved on and used the shortened version "got" which doesn't require the auxilliary verb (usually "have") for it to make sense!

Then someone else will pop up and say its a Scottish word, which will confuse virtually every Scot, until some northern English people pop up and say they use it in their area.

We all know its an attempt to appear trendy by being more American. Modern English stopped using 6 letters plus an auxilliary verb hundreds of years ago. American English has presumably preserved it because what became the US had a variety of languages spoken before English became dominant, including Dutch, French and some indigenous languages, so that is why the more formal past tense was preserved.

What I don't understand in American English is "it fit me". Surely "it fitted me" or "it fits me" is correct. Where did that one come from?

No. Got is still the simple past tense in AmE. "I got myself a sandwich." Gotten is only the past participle: "I had gotten some sandwiches." Americans use both, as appropriate. They just don't say "had got."

I am sad about the loss of regional dialects and accents, which is an issue in the US too. That's not the same as thinking one is better than the other, though. That's going back to the old days of teaching kids to speak in RP so they'd sound posh.

@SucculentChalice, I speak West Brit and Hiberno English, as well as American English, the language of my children and the place where I live. I have learned both Irish and German as second languages. I spent many years studying grammar in both of those languages.

I'm not convinced by the 'hat' examples you are offering.

@knitnerd90, if I recall correctly, you are in the US too, and I agree with your observation wrt American use of got and gotten.