OFF: misbe"gotten"?

J Strobridge eset08 at TATTOO.ED.AC.UK
Thu May 22 11:27:28 EDT 1997


Carl Edlund Anderson writes:


> > I am pretty sure "gotten" is not a valid word in English as spoken in
> > the UK.
>
>     I think even in the UK one can say sentances like "We have gotten
> completely pissed every day this week".  ;)   Or, on a more sober note ;)
> "We've not gotten paid for the work I did."
>
>     Obviously, there are other forms and verbs that could be used there
> ("We've not _been_ paid ..." etc.) but I think the above examples are
> reasonably valid.

not really!   The words "was" "were" or "haven't been" are almost
always used.   "Gotten" can still be found in "ill-gotten" gains or
"misbegotten" in the case of an illegitimate child (tho' this usage
is fairly old and unacceptable now!) but in this part of the UK I
know of no other use for the word at all.   Probably like "yard"
meaning a garden in the US (I think?) it went over with the early
colonists and retained its original meaning in the States while
the meaning shifted and/or disappeared over here.

Yrs offtopically

jill


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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at tattoo.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk
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