(no subject)

[graculus]

Ack. An editor whose opinions I usually happily accept wants me to replace 'got' with 'gotten' in one sentence of a recently-submitted zine story. Am I over-reacting when my immediate reaction is 'hell, no!'?

In case anyone was wondering, the sentence in question: There was little doubt that the sound of breaking glass was coming from inside, but how could anyone have got onto the train?

[Poll #713865]

Comments

[alyse]

'Got' is the grammatically correct choice in that sentence. 'Gotten' may be common usage in American English, but then so is 'drug' as a past tense of 'to drag' or 'would of' instead of 'would have' and I wouldn't use those in narrative either.

As far as I'm concerned, the only acceptable use of 'gotten' would be in the dialogue of a character who would use that grammatically incorrect usage in everyday speech. In other words, it's acceptable to use it if you're trying to capture the essence of a character and the character would use it, which limits it to first person point of view narrative or dialogue.

[isabeau.livejournal.com]

...I would like to argue that "have/had gotten" is not in the same class as "drug" or "would of", in that the latter two are more nonstandard dialects. got/gotten is, to my mind, the same thing as dived/dove -- both *grammatically* correct, in standard dialects, though depending somewhat on the circumstance and on the british/american tendencies.

(interesting link, when googling on "had got" -- http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_294.html )

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I agree with isabeau that "gotten" is not in the same category with "drug" as the past tense of "drag." "Gotten" is in my dictionary as the past participle of "get." It's correct usage if used in the right way (here in the U.S.). "Would of" is always wrong and "drug" as a past tense of "drag" is also always wrong.

[superbadgirl]

Indeed. "Drug" as past tense is wrong no matter where you are, but gotten, while apparently offensive and whatever to some, is perfectly natural to others.

Whenever I come across something that's iffy, I reword and move on. ;)