Languages are prone to evolve. Evolution of language occurs for any number of reasons, including geographical isolation of a group of speakers, natural change over time, and the need for new words to describe concepts that didn’t exist in the past.
In some cases, two different communities decide they want to speak different versions of a shared language simply to differentiate themselves from each other. By some accounts, part of the drive behind forming American and British forms of English was this exact reason. Americans wanted a distinctly American form of English, while the British have been more than happy to reinforce these differences to highlight their own linguistic superiority.
Thus, American and British writers often conjugate the verb get differently.
What is the Difference Between Got and Gotten?
In this post, I will compare got vs. gotten. I will use each of these words in at least one example sentence, so you can see how they appear in context.
Plus, I will show you a memory tool that can help you choose either got or gotten correctly in your own writing.
When to Use Got
Is it got or gotten? Got is a conjugation of the verb get, which means to obtain something.
One might get coffee from a café, for instance. To get something could also mean to obtain understanding, as in the phrase I just don’t get math.
Conjugations of Got:
- I/we get: first person singular and plural present
- You get: second person singular and plural present
- He/she/it gets: third person singular present
- They get: third person plural present
- Getting: present participle
- Got: simple past
Got can also be the past participle of get.
For example,
- There has got to be a better way to solve this riddle.
- He’s finally gotten rid of his chicken pox!
When to Use Gotten
What does gotten mean? Gotten is another way to conjugate get as a past participle.
For example,
- I wouldn’t bring up Mark’s drugs use with Sheila, she’s gotten very angry when we tried to talk to her about it in the past.
Americans are more likely to use gotten than are the British, who are more likely to use got in this tense. The charts below show the relative usage of gotten vs. got within each language community.
American English:
British English:
While these charts aren’t exhaustive in their literary scope, they only look at books published in English since 1800, they still paint a clear picture of a long-term usage trend.
American English: Got vs. Gotten
As the above charts show, American writers are more likely to use the word gotten than their British counterparts. But this graph doesn’t show the full story of this word’s use, as there is a usage difference in American English between got and gotten.
As the Oxford English Dictionary notes,
- Gotten usually implies the process of obtaining something.
- Got implies the state of possession or ownership.
Let’s look at a few examples to illustrate this.
- He has gotten two tickets to the Super Bowl.
- He hasn’t got any money to go to the concert.
The first example is about acquiring tickets to the Super Bowl. The second example is a description of someone’s ability to pay for something.
Trick to Remember the Difference
Got is your only option for a simple past tense form of get. As a past participle, however, there is a slight difference in American English usage.
- Gotten is used when talking about the acquisition of something.
- Got is used when talking the state of ownership of something.
Since gotten is spelled with an N, like the word acquisition, you can remember that that word is used when talking about how something has been acquired..
Summary
Is it gotten or got? The verb get is conjugated as a past participle as either got or gotten.
- American writers differentiate a use for gotten got.
- The British prefer got.
Contents
- 1 What is the Difference Between Got and Gotten?
- 2 When to Use Got
- 3 When to Use Gotten
- 4 American English: Got vs. Gotten
- 5 Trick to Remember the Difference
- 6 Summary
Learning a language can be difficult, especially when people who speak the same language use different words depending on where they live. For example, in the case of the terms “got” or “gotten,” is “gotten” correct?
It is correct to say “gotten” because it is the past participle of “get,” which means “to receive.” However, while it is correct in American English, it is not standard in British English. In contrast, American English frequently uses “gotten” as part of the perfect tense and in various phrases.
The word “gotten” is widespread and useful in American English, so if you want to learn more about using this past participle correctly, keep reading!
Is It Grammatically Correct to Say “Gotten”?
It is grammatically correct to say “gotten” in American English as the past participle of “get.” The past participle typically expresses completed action, and we use it to form the active perfect tense (source).
Since “gotten” is the past participle, it is correct to use it with “have” or “has” to form the present perfect to describe an action that someone has completed.
What Does “Gotten” Mean?
Now that you understand that “gotten” is the past participle of “get,” it’s important to note that the verb “get” has multiple meanings. For instance, to “get” means to receive, but, in some instances, it can also mean “to become.” It can also mean being able or allowed to do something (source).
Let’s start with the basics. The most straightforward meaning of “gotten” is “to have or receive.” For example, you might say:
- I have gotten a call from the school.
In the above sentence, the speaker wants their audience to know that they have received a call. In other words, someone called them. Here is another example:
- He has gotten takeout every day this week.
In this sentence, the word “gotten” refers to the act of receiving a physical thing that he ordered. In this case, that thing is a package from the post office.
Sometimes you may use “gotten” to mean something that isn’t physical. Take the following sentence, for example:
- She seems to have gotten a cold.
Another way to say the above is “she caught a cold.”
“Gotten” can also mean “understood.” You might say:
- I had never gotten math until now.
This sentence would mean that you never understood math before, but now you do.
Using “Gotten” in a Full Sentence
Since “gotten” is a past participle, you can use it in the present and past perfect tenses. However, using the past participle requires the helping verbs “have” or “had.”
First, let’s look at how to use “gotten” in the present perfect tense. Consider the following example:
- John and Sarah have gotten everything from their baby registry.
The above sentence is in the present perfect tense, meaning that it shows something completed at some time before the present. You use the helping verb “has” or “have” with the past participle to show this verb tense. Here are some examples:
- I have gotten the same dish every time I go there.
- He makes sure his students have gotten the idea before moving to the next topic.
Similarly, you can combine the past participle with “had” to form the past perfect. The past perfect shows that something happened before another event in the past (source). Here’s an example to clarify:
- He had gotten his coat before he left for the day.
In this sentence, both actions — getting the coat and leaving — happened at some point in the past. The speaker expressed the act of getting the coat as the past perfect (“had gotten”) because it happened before the second action, leaving for the day.
In What Context Can You Use “Gotten”?
You can use “gotten” when you want to describe how someone has received or obtained something. Since “gotten” is the past participle, you can use it with “has” or “had” when you want to use the present or past perfect.
One way you might use “had gotten” is to provide background information. For example, if you are telling a story about your car, and you think it is relevant to mention you had only just bought the car that summer, you might say:
- I had gotten the car that summer.
The phrase “had gotten” tells your audience that you completed the act of acquiring the car at a point before the other events in your story.
When Can You Use “Gotten”?
Besides the meanings we’ve already discussed, you can also use the word “gotten” in a couple of expressions. Both involve the addition of prepositions: “into” and “along.”
First, you might use “gotten” in the phrase “gotten into.” This is an American phrase that you can use in several ways. First, it can mean “to enjoy something” (source). For example, you might say:
- I have really gotten into baseball lately.
The above example means that the speaker has begun to enjoy baseball quite a bit. However, this isn’t the only way you can use “gotten into,” however. It can also indicate the beginning of a conversation, like in the following example:
- We had gotten into a debate over which college was the best.
“Gotten into” is also an expression you can use when you believe someone acts out of character. For example, someone might state this in the following way:
- I don’t know what has gotten into you lately.
This is a common idiom to express confusion over someone’s behavior. You will notice that many of these expressions use a preposition such as “along” or “into.” Paying attention to the preposition will often help you understand how someone is using “gotten.”
When Not to Use “Gotten”?
When using British English, it is not appropriate to use “gotten.” Instead, you would use “got” where we have used “gotten” so far. Using “got” will sound more natural to those who speak British English.
The use of “gotten” instead of “got” works best in American contexts. For instance, in American English, you would say:
- He has gotten lost.
But in British English, you might say:
- He has got lost.
Both are correct, depending on where you would use them. Just remember that “gotten” is correct in American English but not for British English. So for British English, you should use “got” instead.
How Do You Use “Gotten”?
You can use “gotten” as a part of the present perfect tense. To do this, you will need to use “have,” “has,” or “had.” For example, you can use the phrase “have gotten” to describe something that happened at an unspecified time in the past (source).
As we said, “gotten” has a wide range of meanings. Therefore, there are many contexts where you could use “have gotten.” For example, you might want to describe a situation where you have received an email from someone. To do so, you could say:
- I have gotten an email from Sam.
You can use this phrase to describe receiving all sorts of things. This phrase can describe receiving or coming into possession of something. Here are some examples of how you might do that:
- I have gotten a new bike.
- She has gotten a cold.
- He has gotten the point.
Not all of the above examples are about physical objects. The second is about becoming sick, while the last describes understanding a concept or “point.” In each, someone has obtained something they did not have before: a bike, a virus, or an idea.
“Gotten” often functions as a transitive verb, meaning that it needs something to receive the action. In the case of “gotten,” the object is the thing that the subject has received or obtained (source).
Take the following sentence:
- Bob has gotten the check.
In this sentence, the check is the object. That is, the check is the thing being “gotten.” This is a typical way of using “gotten.” For example, if you were to say, “I have gotten,” your audience might respond with, “You have gotten what?” This is because “gotten” usually takes an object.
Using “Gotten” in “Gotten Along”
You can also use “gotten” in the phrase “have gotten along.” As we said before, there are at least a couple of different ways to use this phrase. The first is to describe how two or more people might relate to one another well.
Here’s an example of this use of “gotten along”:
- Sam and Jean have gotten along this time.
This example means that these two people, Sam and Jean, have maintained a good relationship, perhaps in contrast to other times they interacted.
You can use “gotten” as a part of the phrase “gotten along,” which can have at least a couple of different meanings. First, it can mean “to be cordial with,” as it does in this example:
- Ali and Evvy have gotten along well.
It can also mean “to manage,” as it does here:
- I have gotten along just fine without my phone today.
What Can You Use Instead of “Gotten”?
There are quite a few words that you might use instead of “gotten.” One such synonym is “received.” You can use it for any of the instances where “gotten” means “to come into possession of something” (source).
Take this sentence, for example:
- I have gotten a letter.
You could say instead:
- I have received a letter.
These two sentences mean the same thing. Other words you might use instead of “gotten” are “obtained,” “acquired,” or “gained.” These words are not perfect synonyms of “gotten,” so you will need to consult a dictionary to ensure they are the right word for the sentence.
As we have said, in British contexts, you will want to use “got” instead of “gotten.” Again, this will sound more natural to those accustomed to British English.
“Gotten” as a Part of Other Words
The word “gotten” is a part of some hyphenated words. These words are typically adjectives that describe how a person obtained a thing. These hyphenated words include “ill-gotten” and “self-gotten.”
For instance, you might say something is “ill-gotten” to describe a thing that someone achieved dishonestly (source).
- He hid his ill-gotten gains under the floorboards.
You might also want to say “self-gotten” to describe something that a person acquired by themselves (source). For example:
- He paid for this with his self-gotten fortune.
Both “ill-gotten” and “self-gotten” are adjectives describing how something came into a person’s possession, so they contain the word “gotten” in them.
Formal vs. Informal English
While “gotten” is correct, with formal situations, you should use “have” instead of “have gotten.” Most would consider using the phrase “have gotten” to mean “to have” as informal, so you should avoid it in professional or academic writing (source).
Both formal and informal language have their place. Formal English sounds more professional but less personable. Informal English sounds more casual, but we would not consider it appropriate for most business or academic communication (source).
Verb Tense and Participles
American English uses both “got” and “gotten.” While Americans use “gotten” for the past participle, they use “got” for the simple past tense. There are some important differences between past participles and the past tense.
The past participle can go with “have” or “had” to form the present and past perfect tenses. However, you would not use a participle by itself as a verb. For example, you would not say, “I gotten.” Instead, you need a helping verb to make the verb tense.
On the other hand, the past tense is a verb that shows that an action occurred in the past. If you say that you “got” something, you are describing a past action of receiving something. Also, unlike “gotten,” “got” does not need a helping verb — “I got it,” for example.
This article was written for strategiesforparents.com.
If you want to learn more about past participles and how they differ from the past tense, check out our article “Eaten or Ate: Past Tense vs. Past Participle.”
Final Thoughts
The word “gotten” is prevalent in American English, so it is essential to learn how to use it correctly. If you can use “gotten” correctly, you will be able to employ it in various contexts, whether describing how you received something or using it in idioms.
If you follow this article, you will not only know how to use “gotten,” but where. As we have said, while “gotten” is correct in America, British English speakers typically say “got” for the past participle. Knowing the difference will help you to use “gotten” correctly.
Is It “Got” or “Gotten”?
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LanguageTool
Is it “got” or “gotten”? While one standard favors “got”, the other prefers “gotten.” We’ll teach you the difference between “got” and “gotten.”
- In the United States and Canada, gotten is the preferred past participle form of the verb get.
- Got exists in all varieties as the simple past form.
- However, outside of North America, got is the preferred past participle of get.
Get is an extremely common verb. At one point or another, you’ve probably found yourself having to use the past participle form of this word and have asked yourself, “is it got or gotten?” This post will go over if gotten is a word, and whether you should use got or gotten.
Get, Got, Gotten—The Basics
Understanding when to use got or gotten requires going over the basics.
Get is a verb that has numerous meanings. A few of the definitions are:
1. “to gain possession of”
Nicole will get a new laptop next month.
2. “to succeed in attaining, achieving, or experiencing”
I need to get that new video game by any means necessary.
3. “to become affected by”
Kevin will get sick too if he doesn’t stay away from his sister.
Regardless of how get is used, the simple past tense is always got.
Nicole got a new laptop last month.
I got that new video game.
Kevin got sick because he didn’t stay away from his sister.
Additionally, the past participle of a verb refers to an action that was completed in the past. For example, the simple past tense and past participle of dance is danced.
I want to dance.
Yesterday I danced.
I had danced a lot when I was younger.
Regular verbs have the suffix —ed for both forms, but only irregular verbs have three different realizations.
So, what’s the past participle of get? Got or gotten? That depends on the context and the audience.
Gotten is often viewed as the newer and “American” way of conjugating get, but this word is quite old, predating its use in North America by several centuries. While those who spoke British English stuck with the get-got-got conjugation, North Americans favored get-got-gotten.
In the United States and Canada, using got or gotten as the past participle of get depends on the context.
Gotten is used when referring to the process of acquiring something.
Stephanie had gotten a fine for speeding in a residential area.
Got, on the other hand, is used when referring to a state of possessing or owning something.
I’ve got more brochures in the car if you need them.
When To Use “Got”
Outside of North America, where other dialects of English are used, got is the preferred form of the past participle of get.
So, the first example sentences above would be rewritten as:
Stephanie had got a fine for speeding in a residential area.
The second example sentence would remain as is.
Got vs. Gotten
So, when it comes to the past participle of get, the question is: Who is your audience, and what’s the context? Remember, in North America, gotten is used when referring to the process of acquiring something, while got is used when referring to owning or possessing something. Outside of North America, got is the most frequently used option.
One way to remain certain that you’re using the correct form of the word get is by using LanguageTool as your writing assistant. If you have British English as your primary dialect, it will remind you that gotten isn’t used in the United Kingdom. Besides that, LanguageTool will correct other spelling and grammar errors, suggest stylistic improvements, and supports a variety of languages, including other English dialects like Australian English, New Zealand English, and South African English.
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In American and Canadian English, the past participle of the verb get is usually gotten. For example, we might say, “I have gotten behind on my work,” or, “The book was not gotten easily.” Got is the participle in some uses, though, such as where has got to or have got to means must (e.g., “We have got to go to the store.”) and where has got or have got means has or have (e.g., “I have got five sisters.”)
In the main varieties of English from outside North America, the past participle of get in all its senses is usually got. Gotten appears occasionally, and it is standard in a few set phrases such as ill-gotten gains, but the shorter form prevails by a large margin.
That gotten is primarily used in North America has given rise to the mistaken belief that it is American in origin and hence new and inferior. But gotten is in fact an old form, predating the United States and Canada by several centuries. It fell out of favor in British English by the 18th century, but it was eventually picked up again on the other side of the Atlantic, perhaps by analogy with forgotten.
The vehemence of some Britons’ scorn for gotten likely has to do with the fact that it has gained ground in British English over the last couple of decades. Many English speakers from outside North America resist the encroachment of so-called Americanisms (many of which, like gotten, are not actually American in origin) on their versions of English, and, for mysterious reasons, some feel especially strongly about gotten.
Examples
In the U.S. and Canada, gotten is the past participle of get in most of its senses, as in these examples:
Values have gotten a bad rap because of how they are discussed in politics and as they relate to religious beliefs. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
I’ve long gotten a thrill from the rawness and messiness of our local politics. [National Post]
But got is the past participle for some senses of get—for example:
The Republican Party has got to change. [Allentown Morning Call]
Whoever the Bombers hire, they want to do it quickly because they’ve got so many other critical decisions to make. [Winnipeg Free Press]
Outside the U.S., got, as used in these examples, is the preferred past participle of get in all its senses:
He has got out 25 times to left-arm slow bowlers in his Test career. [Telegraph]
Australia hasn’t got talent any more. [Sydney Morning Herald]
I have never been particularly houseproud or tidy, but things seem to have got out of hand. [letter to Guardian]
Both “got” and “gotten” are common terms in North America, but other English dialects do not use “gotten” at all. So why is this? And what is the exact difference between “got” and “gotten”? Check out our guide below to find out how to avoid errors when using these terms.
Present and Simple Past Tenses of “Get”
The present tense verb “get” has several meanings, including:
- Come to have or receive something (e.g., I hope we get a good reception)
- Attain, achieve, or obtain something (e.g., I get a newspaper every day)
- Reach a condition or state (e.g., He will get fat if he eats the whole cake)
The simple past tense of this verb is always “got,” regardless of the context:
We got a great reception from the crowd.
I got the newspaper this morning.
He got fat when he ate all the cake.
This applies in all English dialects. So, if you are using the simple present or past tense in your writing, the only terms you will need are “get” and “got.”
Past Participles: “Got” and “Gotten” in American English
We use past participles to form the present and past perfect tenses, which both show that an action has been completed. This verb form will follow “have,” “has,” or “had” in a sentence. And American English uses both “got” and “gotten” as past participles:
- We use “got” when referring to a state of owning or possessing something.
- We use “gotten” when referring to a process of “getting” something.
For example, if we were describing the process of “getting better” at something, we would use the past participle “gotten” in the perfect tenses:
She had gotten better in the last year.
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But if we were describing possessing enough time for something, we would use “got.” For example:
I have got enough time for a coffee before I go out.
The same usage applies in Canadian English. However, the term “gotten” is much rarer outside North America.
Past Participles in Other English Dialects
In other English dialects, the correct past participle form of “get” is always “got.” For instance, if we were to rewrite the examples above for a British audience, we would say:
She had got better in the last year.
I have got enough time for a cup of tea.
Notice that both sentences use “got” as a past participle. As such, if you’re writing for a non-American audience, you will not need the word “gotten.” In fact, the only time this term is used in dialects such as British and Australian English is in old-fashioned terms like “ill-gotten.”
Summary: Got or Gotten?
In American English, “got” and “gotten” can both be past participles of the verb “get.” The correct term depends on what you are describing:
- Use got when referring to a state of possessing something.
- Use gotten when referring to a process of “getting” something.
However, “gotten” is extremely rare outside North American (especially in formal writing). As such, you should always use “got” when you’re writing for a non-American audience. And if you want to be certain your writing is the best it can be, don’t forget to have it proofread.
As every loyal British subject knows, American English is bad and wrong and stupid and a threat to our way of life. So I guess that makes me a traitor. I find it hard to worry about a few new imported words and phrases every year, especially as we exported our entire language across the Atlantic.
Yes, some of these newcomers grate – new words often do – and many of those ones don’t survive long. But others have become so well-established that most Brits don’t even realise they were made in America. Here are a few of the terms we’ve gained from the US: bandwagon, bedrock, blizzard, boss, cereal, close-up, comeback, cocktail, crook (criminal), ditch (get rid of), electrocute, fan (devotee), footwear, gobbledygook, graveyard, joyride, know-how, maverick, radio…*
The US has been a wonderful way of enriching British English, even if some of those riches seemed vulgar at first.
How gotten works
One noteworthy word is gotten: standard in the US but not in the UK.
In both countries, the past tense of get is got. In British English, the past participle is also got. But in American English, it’s more complex. Roughly: when talking about a static situation (possessing or needing) the past participle is got; when talking about a dynamic situation (acquiring or becoming) the past participle is gotten. So:
- Yesterday I got a new guitar
- I’ve got a great guitar
- I’ve gotten a new guitar
- You’ve got to see my new guitar
- I got into playing the guitar last year
- I’d gotten into playing the guitar the previous year
Any Brit who reads American books or watches American TV and films will have come across gotten. And, in fact, more people in Britain are coming to use it themselves – although it’s still often seen as an Americanism.
For a snapshot of recent usage, I looked at the Glowbe corpus of text from 1.8 million web pages in 2012. I compared different countries’ uses of has gotten, have gotten and had gotten with has got, have got and had got. The results don’t account for differences between static and dynamic situations, but they give us a rough relative picture.
On US websites, has/have/had gotten outnumbers has/have/had got by almost two to one. So that’s what a fully operational got–gotten distinction looks like. On Canadian sites, gotten is only slightly ahead of got, which suggests usage may be a bit more mixed. In Australia and Ireland, got is ahead by about three to one; gotten is common, but not fully accepted. And on British sites, has/have/had got outnumbers has/have/had gotten by seven to one.
(In a more formal context – Hansard’s record of proceedings in Parliament since 2010 – the ratio is about 1,500 to one.)
So, gotten is still far from mainstream in the UK, but it has built a firm presence. And, whether or not it catches on to become standard, it’s another example of British English using an Americanism.
Except that it isn’t.
This is how British English used to work – or rather, how English English used to work before Britain even existed.
The English decline of gotten
The huge list of example sentences in the OED suggests that gotten reigned supreme until the late 1500s, when got increasingly appeared in its place. Shakespeare and Hobbes used both. Got seems to have overtaken gotten around 1700.
Geoffrey Chaucer (Legend of Good Women, c1386): Ffor he woste wel she wolde nat ben geten
John Paston (letter, 1477): The Frenshe Kynge hathe gothen many off the townys off the Dukys off Borgoyne
Myles Coverdale (Bible translation, 1535): Treasures that are wickedly gotten, profit nothinge
William Shakespeare (Henry VI pt 2, c1591): Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge
Shakespeare (Henry VI pt 3, c1591): The Army of the Queene hath got the field
Walter Raleigh (letter, 1618): I had gotten my libertye
Richard Whitlock (Zootomia, 1654): they should have got a whipping
John Evelyn (letter, 1690): I have now gotten me a pair of new horses
George Berkeley (Alciphron, 1732): Some old Ideas may be lost, and some new ones got
John Stepple (testimony at the Old Bailey, 1742): I would go and fetch a Constable, for he had got the Thief
Usage commentators eventually noticed the change, but too late to do anything about it. Robert Lowth’s popular Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) complained about “a very great Corruption, by which the Form of the Past Time is confounded with that of the Participle” – including the use of got instead of gotten. Lowth said: “This confusion prevails greatly in common discourse, and is too much authorised by the example of some of our best Writers.”
Maybe Lowth was thinking of Samuel Johnson, whose dictionary, seven years earlier, had uncritically listed both got and gotten as options for the past participle of get. Neither Johnson nor Lowth commented on the difference between static and dynamic situations.
And then in 1795, Lindley Murray’s blockbuster English Grammar declared that gotten was “obsolete”. That’s an overstatement, but by then it was uncommon, at least in standard usage. It partly survived in some nonstandard dialects (such as in Scotland and Ireland), as well as in the fossilised phrase ill-gotten gains. And there British English stayed for the best part of two centuries.
The American rebirth of gotten
In the US, got also dominated, but gotten survived on the fringes.
Noah Webster’s dictionary of 1828 said that gotten was “nearly obsolete in common parlance”. But it also said the same of forgotten and swollen. A generation later, Richard Meade Bache’s Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech (1869) said that gotten was still only “nearly obsolete”.
But Richard Grant White in Words and Their Uses (1870) saw the issue as a live dispute, and he picked a side: “I am asked, for instance, whether gotten… belongs to the list of ‘words that are not words.’ Certainly not.” Alfred Ayres in The Verbalist (1881) agreed: “If we say eaten, written, striven, forgotten, why not say gotten, where this form of the participle is more euphonious – as it often is – than got?”
The American revival of gotten seems to have started at the end of the 19th century.
Data from Google Books shows the end of gotten’s decline in British and American English (as with the Glowbe data, I’m looking at the ratio of has/have/had gotten to has/have/had got). And then – in the US – there’s the start of its recovery:
Some Americans continued to resist it, such as Dana Jensen (Modern Composition and Rhetoric, 1935), who said, with a whiff of wishful thinking, that “gotten… has been supplanted by got in formal usage”. The mention of formal usage suggests that the rearguard action had narrowed its focus to style, but still it was doomed.
In 1942, Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage accepted the return of gotten: it was “obsolete in Great Britain… but in the U.S.A., gotten (past participle) is preferred to got”.
And Theodore Bernstein in The Careful Writer (1965) agreed, noting the value of the got–gotten distinction. He quoted the linguist Albert Marckwardt: “In fact, most Americans regularly make a very precise distinction between got and gotten. ‘We’ve got ten thousand dollars for laboratory equipment,’ means that the funds in question are in our possession – we have them. ‘We have gotten ten thousand dollars for laboratory equipment,’ means that we have obtained or acquired this particular sum of money.”
In the late 20th century, gotten surged back into mainstream, standard usage in the US. And British usage has tentatively started to follow.
The future
I don’t think any British usage guide has yet endorsed gotten, and for the moment that seems fair – although the reason has changed. A century ago, the word would have seemed affectedly archaic (Henry Fowler’s judgement in 1926); today, the risk is that it comes across as affectedly American. How easily we forget our history.
Jeremy Butterfield’s 2015 edition of Fowler notes that gotten is on the increase in the UK. And I’ve been noticing it more and more in British conversation over the last few years – mostly from younger people. So I’d guess this shift is generational rather than because individuals are changing their usage. While it’s easy to pick up new words at any age, the grammar of a common verb like get may be a more fundamental thing to relearn. I’d expect gotten to keep growing – but slowly, and mostly in casual contexts.
And why shouldn’t we Brits use it? As Marckwardt and Bernstein said, and as millions of Americans have found, it’s useful. And it’s a part of our heritage that the US is helping us to recover. But I may be too set in my ways to start using it myself.
* Thanks to various people on Twitter for helping me with the list of Americanisms that have become British – especially to Andrew Brightwell, who pointed me towards a paper by Katerina Pauliuc.
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From Sarah Woodbury’s website: Romance and Fantasy in Medieval Wales
On the use of the word ‘gotten’
Several UK readers have wondered about the use of the word ‘gotten’ in my medieval mysteries. Since the word is not in common usage in England right now, it seems odd to them to read it at all, and a glaring ‘Americanism’ in a book set in the medieval period. At first glance, this might appear to be yet another instance of ‘two countries separated by a common language,’ but as it turns out, the history of the word ‘gotten’ is a lot more interesting than that.
‘Gotten’ is, in fact, an ancient English word that was in use in England at the time America was colonized by the English. Over the centuries, the Americans kept on using it and the English did not.
Origin: 1150-1200(v.) Middle English geten < Old Norse geta to obtain, beget; cognate with Old English –gietan (> Middle English yeten), German-gessen, in vergessen to forget; (noun) Middle English: something gotten, offspring, derivative of the v.
The British author quotes from reference.dot.com, whose the page is now obsolete.
“British English discontinued the use of “have gotten” as a form of the past participle for “get” over 300 years ago. […]. It is now rarely used in the British version of the English language. American English continues to use “have gotten” to emphasis the action performed. In American English language “has got” implies possession. It is assumed that if “has got” is used that it is referencing what the person has in their possession. On the other hand, “has gotten” implies that the person acquired, received or obtained an item.”
In brief, gotten is a perfectly legitimate word with a long and glorious history.