|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544
addict
|
addict
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544 |
In the States, "I've gotten" would normally be used for the continuing meaning ("I've gotten a bit heavier
lately"), but the possession meaning would be expressed without "got", simply as "I have a list" or "I don't
have a list".
US'ns also use the possessive form "I've got," which brings us full circle on this thread, as it's used in "I gotta go."
Gotta go,
Hyla
p.s. Was tickled to notice that Ænigma reads gotta as gotten - maybe it's paying more attention than I thought.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 3,065 |
Perhaps I misunderstood Bobyoungbait's post, but I thought he was saying that some USians (v. themians?) use both I've got and I've gotten.
There's no problem about the difference between I've gotten heavier and I got heavier,as cited by Hyla. That's just the normal difference between past simple and present perfect. The past signifies that we're talking solely about the past and the present is not a concern while the present perfect signifies a present effect.
For those USians who do use both forms (I've gotten and I've got), what's the difference?
Bingley
Bingley
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
I've looked at three different dictionaries - Websters, Merriam Websters and the COD - and they all simply describe "gotten" as one of two possible past participles of "get", the other being "got". They also all agree about the etymology, from Middle English from German. If anything, "gotten" is closer to its source than "got". Usage seems to be regional as suggested above, but the use of "gotten" is neither obsolete nor incorrect. In NZ, the use of "gotten" would be seen as unusual, but only the tuppenny linguistic police would even comment.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 140
member
|
|
member
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 140 |
distinctive time-warped features of the USA tongue. I am just returned from an increasingly desperate and, of course, unsuccessful search for Bill Bryson's Made In America which I was hoping I would be correct in referring people to as an interesting and readable account of some of the "Americanisms" which many of my countrypersons profess to despise, but which are in fact quite pure English as she was once spoke, if a little outdated in some quarters. I hope this is the book I am thinking of. ( sic) A couple of the early chapters are relevant, I think. If not, someone will enlighten us. Really, looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for ... anybody care to provide a suitable simile from their own experience? lusy 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
neither obsolete nor incorrectYes, I agree with you CapK - I was trying to make a non-judgmental observation that I had believed this to be an Americanism that falls into the class of traditional UK usage that had been left intact whereas in the UK (subject to less isolation for a 100 years of crucial development?) that now is definitely on the verge of being archaic or regional dialect. But it is merely an attractive difference - no slur intended. 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Bingley, Hyla and Marianne have all pretty much gotten the idea of how the two are used. With not infrequent exceptions, we in the US do not generally use "got" to mean "have". Notwithstanding some pretty obvious usages, like, "I've got music, I've got rhythm", "I've got a loverly bunch of coconuts", "He's got the whole world in His hands", which is the possessive use, or "I've got you under my skin" which is not. On the other hand, if/when we do use "got" for the possessive, it tends to be as an emphatic expression. One would generally say, "I have two apples" rather than "I've got two apples"; but I think we would tend more to "He's got a gun pointed at you!" but "He has a gun stored in the garage." Then there's the fact that the exceptions that come to my mind are from songs; I would agree that "gotten" is unmusical and "have" is a problem for musical purposes.
So to sum up, Americans tend on the whole not to use "got" for "have" as the normal verb of possession. They use "got" as the past tense, or preterite, of "get", but generally use "gotten" as the past participle to form the perfect tense, rather than "got", which is British usage. To the preference for "have" over "got", there are exceptions, notably for emphasis, for euphony. I'm sure there will be more that will occur to you out there.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
More from the U.S., Bingley--
I've gotten a list--implies that I have made a bit of an effort to obtain it.
I've got a list--it's in my possession, no connotations.
I've gotten fond of blueberry pie = I've become fond...
I've got fond of...we don't say this, not ever, never.
==========================================================
looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for ... anybody care to provide a suitable simile from their own experience?
a bit in a bucket. (Hi, Ted.)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
looking for a particular book in this house is like looking for..
.. a plum in a pigpen.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
|
|
addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
From "Scoop" (1938) by Evelyn Waugh:
"From the moment of her entrance the luncheon party was transformed for Lord Copper; he had gotten a new angle on it."
I think this is the first time I've encountered 'gotten' in a book published in Britain.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>Bill Bryson's Made In America
I'm pretty sure that the book you need is called (here) "Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson. I re-discovered it recently after a year or so of its absence, when I moved a bookcase and found it down the back. Slippery chap that Bryson, you can never find him when you need him.
In the book he puts forward a quite convincing argument about words like "gotten".
I quote from p164 of the UK Penguin edition:
"It is certainly true that America in general preserved many dozens of words that would otherwise almost certainly have been lost to English. The best noted, perhaps, is gotten which to most Britons is the quaintest of Americanisms. It is now so unused in Britain that many Brtons have to have the distinction between got and gotten explained to them even though they make the same distinction between forgot and forgotten ...."
Imagine that!
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,580
Members9,187
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
332
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
