A word question (gotten vs. got?)

nevada · Feb 10, 2009

We all got off this post, having got the idea that we were just talking in circles now.

(yes, commonwealthian) for you americans it'll be "having gotten the idea".

Wayne K · Feb 10, 2009

I think gotten is a colioquialism, <-spelling?

Sage · Feb 10, 2009

CaroGirl said:
You also quoted me. I already know Americans use the word gotten, and some Canadians too. I just said it sounded wrong to me.

I was addressing the question you posed, so I quoted you. The question was why "got" (in the example, "He would have gotten the same results if he had just asked...") didn't work. My answer was that in American usage it didn't work because...

Sage said:
It (got) is wrong in the past participle case.

I get a book this Christmas
I got a book last Christmas
I have gotten a book every Christmas since I was three.

Really, it wasn't an attack on you at all.... I was just answering the question.

CaroGirl · Feb 10, 2009

Sage said:
Really, it wasn't an attack on you at all.... I was just answering the question.

Attack? Oh my. I wasn't thinking you intended any attack. No worries. Just a discussion is all, yes?

Sage · Feb 10, 2009

Oh, good. Phew

nevada · Feb 10, 2009

Wayne K said:
I think gotten is a colioquialism, <-spelling?

No, gotten is the correct usage in america speak. I got, I have gotten. very correct. but some language snobs like to look down on it as common speak. pay them no mind.

but us commonwealthians only ever say got, not gotten. cause, yanno, we like to make up our own words. and if we could stick a u and a double L in there we so totally would.

Ms Hollands · Feb 10, 2009

Erm, I don't know what I say anymore, apart from trying to avoid anything but the present tense of 'get'. I think in Australia, 'gotten' is spoken more than written. Does this make us anti-British-Commonwealthians?

Either way, it's a word that, no matter which version of it you choose, will provoke a reaction from some of your audience. I think I can always rewrite a sentence to not use such words, but it depends on whether you mind provoking your audience or not.

Wayne K said:
Actually the sentence is "He would have gotten the same results if he had just asked..."

So, along with the other suggestions, I can think of:
He would have had the same results if he had just asked...
He would have come up with the same results if he had just asked...
He would have seen the same results if he had just asked...
He would have attained the same results if he had just asked...
He would have ended up with the same results if he had just asked...

...all a bit different, depending on your needs...

NeuroFizz · Feb 10, 2009

I agree with Nevada, but I just don't like the word "gotten." And I don't consider myself to be a language snob. Having likes and dislikes in terms of specific words is not snobbery. There is an in-between here. I think there are much better words out there that can be used instead of gotten in nearly every case. And that's not snobbery because our job is to find the best words for our individual writing styles. That's what writers are supposed to do--find the best words for our prose. That said, if one (including me) is looking for a specific cadence and consonant melody in a passage, gotten may rise right to the top of word choice.

ideagirl · Feb 10, 2009

NeuroFizz said:
I agree with Nevada, but I just don't like the word "gotten." And I don't consider myself to be a language snob. Having likes and dislikes in terms of specific words is not snobbery. There is an in-between here. I think there are much better words out there that can be used instead of gotten in nearly every case. And that's not snobbery because our job is to find the best words for our individual writing styles.

That's two separate issues. Based on what you're saying here, it sounds as if what you dislike is not "gotten" but the verb "to get" in general; you prefer more specific or interesting verbs.

That is one issue, and that has to be what you mean, because there is no alternative to "gotten" if you're using "get" in a tense that requires the past participle. If you're an American writer writing anything other than, say, dialogue spoken by a British/Canadian/etc. character, then "gotten" is your only option when you use the word "get" and the sentence requires the present perfect, past perfect, conditional type 3, etc. If you use "get" in such a tense, then issues of personal preference go out the window because there's nothing else for you to prefer: there is no option other than "gotten." That's the only grammatically correct possibility.

So you must simply mean that, wherever possible, you prefer using verbs more precise or dynamic than "get" in any of its tenses.

The other issue is whether your dislike of "gotten" is a sign of being a language snob. It can't be--not in the sense of snobbishly preferring highbrow or hyper-correct English over lowbrow or colloquial English--because "gotten" IS hyper-correct: in the US, it is the only correct past participle of "get." It can't be described as lowbrow, because there is simply no alternative at all, and thus there is nothing that could possibly be the highbrow alternative to "gotten." If you want the past participle of "get," "gotten" is the only option you have.

Wayne K said:
I think gotten is a colioquialism, <-spelling?

Nope. See above.

ideagirl · Feb 10, 2009

nevada said:
No, gotten is the correct usage in america speak. I got, I have gotten. very correct. but some language snobs like to look down on it as common speak. pay them no mind.

Yep... because they're WRONG. At least, if they're American, they're wrong. Apparently the theory holds water in Australia; however, it holds none here.

nevada said:
but us commonwealthians only ever say got, not gotten. .... and if we could stick a u and a double L in there we so totally would.

Maybe we should call you "Coummounweallthians"?

CaroGirl · Feb 10, 2009

ideagirl said:
The other issue is whether your dislike of "gotten" is a sign of being a language snob. It can't be--not in the sense of snobbishly preferring highbrow or hyper-correct English over lowbrow or colloquial English--because "gotten" IS hyper-correct: in the US, it is the only correct past participle of "get." It can't be described as lowbrow, because there is simply no alternative at all, and thus there is nothing that could possibly be the highbrow alternative to "gotten." If you want the past participle of "get," "gotten" is the only option you have.

I admit to not realizing that, in American English, there is no "have got." I should have thought it would be a viable alternative, albeit a less used one.

Interesting.

CaroGirl · Feb 10, 2009

My Strunk and White, Elements of Style, cites: "The preferable form of the participle (of get) is got, not gotten." (p. 48 in my version)

This is an American grammar handbook, is it not?

ideagirl · Feb 10, 2009

CaroGirl said:
I admit to not realizing that, in American English, there is no "have got." I should have thought it would be a viable alternative, albeit a less used one.

Typical U.S. usage of "have got" would be as follows:

American #1: I would have got groceries, but I left my wallet at home.
American #2: You would've... what?! Got?! Dude, are you on crack?!

CaroGirl · Feb 10, 2009

ideagirl said:
Typical U.S. usage of "have got" would be as follows:

American #1: I would have got groceries, but I left my wallet at home.
American #2: You would've... what?! Got?! Dude, are you on crack?!

Strunk and White, Elements of Style:

Incorrect: They returned without having gotten any.
Correct: They returned without having got any.

You can look it up if you have a copy lying around.

NeuroFizz · Feb 10, 2009

ideagirl said:
Based on what you're saying here, it sounds as if what you dislike is not "gotten" but the verb "to get" in general; you prefer more specific or interesting verbs.

This is accurate, but since the discussion was on the one form, "gotten," that's where I left it.

And, I guess I'll go with Strunk and White, although a personal preference like mine doesn't have to be based on written grammar conventions. I just don't like the word "gotten" and it has nothing to do with using "get" or "got" and it has nothing to do with what anyone else prefers or views as proper or snobbish. That's the cool thing about writing. We all get to develop our own style.

ideagirl · Feb 10, 2009

CaroGirl said:
My Strunk and White, Elements of Style, cites: "The preferable form of the participle (of get) is got, not gotten." (p. 48 in my version)

This is an American grammar handbook, is it not?

I've never heard any American say "have got" in tenses using the past participle (as distinct from "have got" in the sense of "I have got a car," etc.). Well, wait, there are exceptions: that usage is occasionally heard among uneducated people, such as prisoners--I seem to recall, when I was working at the public defender's office, occasionally hearing sentences like "I would have got off [i.e. not been convicted], but damn if that bitch didn't get herself up there and testify, even though I done told her not to open her mouth." And very occasionally, educated people who are doofuses or are at a stage in their lives (e.g. frat boys in college) where they like to come across as doofuses will say it--"I totally woulda got us some beer," etc.

Suffice to say, it is not a usage that one hears among educated Americans. If anything, the situation here is the reverse of the situation in Australia: "would have gotten" is correct and therefore highbrow; "would have got" is incorrect and therefore lowbrow.

So, apart from those exceptions above, I've never heard it in the entire course of getting three graduate degrees in language, literature and (most recently) the law.

Never in the entire course of teaching composition (i.e. essay writing), grant-proposal writing and creative writing at the college level.

It just ain't done. Hahaha. Not among educated people, anyway, and certainly not in writing. Strunk and White must have been having an attack of Anglophilia when they drafted that passage. It happens to even the best of us...

CaroGirl · Feb 10, 2009

ideagirl said:
I've never heard any American say "have got" in tenses using the past participle (as distinct from "have got" in the sense of "I have got a car," etc.)...

Never in the entire course of teaching composition (i.e. essay writing), grant-proposal writing and creative writing at the college level.

It just ain't done. Hahaha. Not among educated people, anyway, and certainly not in writing. Strunk and White must have been having an attack of Anglophilia when they drafted that passage. It happens to even the best of us...

So, you're saying Strunk and White is wrong and you're right? By what authority are you right, except having spoken to lots of other Americans who may or may not have used "have got" in casual conversation?

I concede that the word "gotten" is widely used and accepted in American conversation and writing, but you must agree that "have got" is not actually wrong in American. It just isn't.

ideagirl · Feb 10, 2009

CaroGirl said:
So, you're saying Strunk and White is wrong and you're right? By what authority are you right, except having spoken to lots of other Americans who may or may not have used "have got" in casual conversation?

I concede that the word "gotten" is widely used and accepted in American conversation and writing, but you must agree that "have got" is not actually wrong in American. It just isn't.

I don't have S&W at hand, so I can't comment (I looked on Google Books to see if I could read that passage in context, but it's not on Google Books). However, this would no doubt be the first time that S&W and demented convicts at the public defender's office agreed on a point of grammar.

As for references, let's see...
Chicago Manual of Style, s. 5.202 (stating that the verb to get "is conjugated get-got-gotten in American English, and get-got-got in British English");
Michael Strumpf & Auriel Douglas, The Grammar Bible, p. 51 (listing "gotten," but not "got," as the past participle of "get");
Patricia O'Connor, Woe is I, p. 191 (stating that people who insist that have got is preferable to have gotten "have gotten their grammar wrong").

In the US, The Chicago Manual of Style is the leading grammar and usage guide. Here's a link--note what it says about Chicago style, as distinct from other style guides that are specific to certain academic subjects: the Chicago style is "used with all subjects in the 'real world' by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-scholarly publications." http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citation.htm

Strunk & White is widely used too, but it's also widely acknowledged to be a bit on the old fashioned and fusty side--in other words, sometimes it insists that grammar rules that were correct in 1810 must still be correct today. It is true that in the early days of this country, we said "have got" instead of "have gotten"--because we'd just gotten off the boat from England. But American English has changed in the intervening two centuries.

MDei · Feb 10, 2009

Let me put my grammar theory on here. Got is the past form of get and gotten is the past participle, meaning to use it you need to use have, has, or had before it. In writing, it can make a sentence wordy why say, "I had gotten some ice cream when you can say, "I had some ice cream. There are proper ways to use gotten though, but it's almost like slang.

ex. She's gotten into a fight before. vs She's been in a fight before.

Either way, it's not wrong or right, but when revising I replace it with stronger words or just delete it when it's not needed. How do I determine this? If I can rearrange the sentence to present form and it makes sense, I'll keep it.
ex. She got cheese from the neighbor to She get's cheese from the neighnor.
But even in that case, borrowed or borrows sounds better.

I usually just avoid the word unless in dialouge. It's just one of those words I can't stand. Of course, it's JMHO. Someone else may disagree.

gothicangel · Feb 10, 2009

Well, I agree!

I quite frequently will say 'I got this dress from Debenhams.' However if I wrote the same line I would say 'I bought this dress from Debenhams.'

nevada · Feb 10, 2009

ex. She got cheese from the neighbor to She get's cheese from the neighnor.
But even in that case, borrowed or borrows sounds better.

Except that they are two very different things. to get is not the same as to borrow and it changes the meaning of the sentence and maybe even the whole piece if it centers on the cheese. lol

Sometimes got is the only way to go, because it is the voice of the character. Remember, we are not writing essays. we are writing fiction and in fiction character voice is all and if your character says, I'd gotten an idea or I got off the bus, then that's what your character says.

Ambrosia · Feb 10, 2009

Having gone through my fair share of English classes since my education within the States began as a young child, I can back up what ideagirl is saying concerning the use of 'gotten'. I have never had a teacher pull out a copy of Strunk & White and say, "you must use got, not gotten because they say so." I have had a number of exercises making me create sentences using 'get' in all its forms. If I would have put 'have got' in the sentence showing the past participle form of 'get' I would have gotten a red correction mark on my paper and lost points.

Bartleby.com has an excerpt from The American Heritage Book of English Usage, 1996 edition, on the use of got/gotten. The following is an excerpt of their excerpt:
"The notion that gotten is illegitimate has been around for over 200 years and refuses to die. The word itself is much older than the criticism against it. As past participles of get, both got and gotten go back to the Middle Ages."
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0144.html

There is more on the Net, but I tire of retrieving what anyone here can easily seek out themselves if they have the inclination.

Why are we arguing again? Have we gotten anywhere yet? :tongue

Ambrosia · Feb 10, 2009

CaroGirl said:
Strunk and White, Elements of Style:

Incorrect: They returned without having gotten any.
Correct: They returned without having got any.

You can look it up if you have a copy lying around.

I believe its the 'having' with the 'gotten' that does you in.

MDei · Feb 10, 2009

nevada said:
Except that they are two very different things. to get is not the same as to borrow and it changes the meaning of the sentence and maybe even the whole piece if it centers on the cheese. lol

Sometimes got is the only way to go, because it is the voice of the character. Remember, we are not writing essays. we are writing fiction and in fiction character voice is all and if your character says, I'd gotten an idea or I got off the bus, then that's what your character says.

I said it's fine in dialouge. As a matter of fact, I remember saying that was the only place I put it. In this case I was talking about narration, but even in the case above, got is vague.

We could think steal, borrow, robbed, snagged, snatched, bought... There's a never ending list of verbs that could replace it.

Dialogue is different. As a matter of fact, that's where I made an exception and if I didn't, my bad.

nevada · Feb 10, 2009

narrative is also in the character's voice if it's 3rd person pov, or 1st. the only time it's not in character is if it's omniscient. so yes, i agree that a better word can be found, but sometimes it's just the right word.

A word question (gotten vs. got?)

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