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Pedants' corner

Is 'gotten' becoming normal English usage?

22 replies

bigkidsdidit · 11/02/2014 13:13

I'm seeing it everywhere on MN at the moment - I would guess almost every thread has one person at least saying gotten rather than got.

Is it becoming standard English English?

OP posts:
SauceForTheGander · 11/02/2014 13:15

I does seem to be and I loathe it.

I heard it rarely when I was a teenager (25 years ago) and it was only used by American friends. It's used everywhere now.

DrankSangriaInThePark · 11/02/2014 13:17

It was the original English taken to America by the Pilgrim Fathers.

Maybe it's coming home. Wink

bigkidsdidit · 11/02/2014 13:22

I know it was. But I don't think that's why people use it!

OP posts:
badtime · 16/02/2014 22:22

It is used in a number of dialects of British English. The posters who use it may be from somewhere it is the usual form.

However, I really dislike it, and think anyone who uses it should be shotten.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 17/02/2014 19:20

or forgotten?

MoreBeta · 17/02/2014 19:30

I also loathe 'gotten' and it is an Americanism and I was also told on MN (I think?) that gotten is actually a proper English word - so that put me back in my box.

I still loathe it though.

Faverolles · 17/02/2014 19:37

Hugh Lofting used the word in the Dr Dolittle books in the early 1900's (or thereabouts?)

SconeRhymesWithGone · 17/02/2014 20:01

The word Americanism is also an Americanism, coined by John Witherspoon, the first president of Princeton. So if you want to avoid Americanisms . . .

TallulahBetty · 17/02/2014 20:04

God I hope not. It's hideous Angry

throckenholt · 17/02/2014 20:04

NOOOO !

It makes my teeth itch. Please, NO.

It may be perfectly standard speech for the 1600s, and carried on in the US - but it isn't here.

KissesBreakingWave · 17/02/2014 20:14

None of you have gotten any respect for the fine history of our language. It went out of fashion a century or two ago and now you're treating it as dead? FICKLE.

Weegiemum · 17/02/2014 20:16

I really dislike it.

SweetPenelope · 17/02/2014 20:32

It's completely normal and acceptable in America. I lived there as a child and grew up saying "gotten". I don't say it much here, because it sounds like bad grammar in the UK. I quite like it.

MoreBeta · 17/02/2014 21:01

"It's completely normal and acceptable in America."

That is not what I call a recommendation.

SconeRhymesWithGone · 17/02/2014 21:06

As an American, I love the fact that with all the neologisms we are responsible for, we have retained words and forms from English contemporaneous with the first settlements. Fall for autumn is another example.

NigellasDealer · 17/02/2014 21:09

well i think gotten is fine and not really an Americanism as such. my friend who is from somerset originally says it, and my son says it too.
i mean forgot = forget = forgotten
soo.....got = get = gotten?

what is wrong with that?

SconeRhymesWithGone · 17/02/2014 21:13

Nigella Yes, indeed. I was about to ask the same thing. Do people who hate "gotten" also hate "forgotten"?

bigkidsdidit · 17/02/2014 21:15

I don't think it's wrong as such. I think normal English use has been got for a long time, and it is now changing. And I think it is changing because people want to appear American. I've also noticed lots of 'assholes' rather than 'arseholes' in Relationships recently!

OP posts:
NigellasDealer · 17/02/2014 21:17

to be honest though , assholes does sound kind of less offensive than arseholes doesn't it?
kind of like fuck and feck?

SconeRhymesWithGone · 17/02/2014 21:22

Asshole comes from arsehole; we just lost the r along the way, probably due to a non-rhotic accent combined with a shortening of the a sound.

bigkidsdidit · 17/02/2014 21:26

Yes, I suppose. It just irritates me when I see it all over the place. Like someone putting on a fake accent.

OP posts:
barbarianoftheuniverse · 17/02/2014 21:59

It's not as bad as 'dove'. As in, 'she dove into her sweater'. I don't know what she did after that; I had to stop reading in case she did it again.

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