Re: USAGE: gotten

Since my inbox is full of emails about gotten and other strange English
words, like whilst, I thought I'd throw this out, just because I hadn't seen
it yet.  Keep in mind that I am not trying to argue that "dictionary English"
is "correct English," but still it's sometimes nice to see what the "experts"
have to say.  This is from Dictionary.com, and therefore, by extension, the
American Heritage Dictionary.

whilst = same as while (ch. brit., from "whiles", archaic for "while")
gotten = past participle of get
got = past participle of get AND past tense of get

Websters, however, lists got as both the imp. and p.p. form of get, giving
gotten the status of *obsolescent form of got (p.p.)* the same as "gat,"
which is the obsolescent form of got (imp.).

FWIW, in my area of the States, we avoid past participles of the verb get,
and thus we use "got" in most cases, however, on those strange occasions
where we need a p.p., we almost always use gotten.  Just a wild guess, but it
could be the fact that almost everyone around here is German.

Eli

P.S. I dearly hope that this is coming through in ASCII only.  AOL doesn't
seem to understand how dearly some of us would like a "send in plain text
only" button.

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