Re: USAGE: gotten, boughten

At 3:04 PM -0400 06/24/02, Roger Mills wrote:
>Tony Hogard wrote:
>
>>Also shrunk-shrunken.  My wife and I were just discussing these
>>participle forms yesterday.  The prescriptivist in me cringed when
>>she used "boughten", though.  I didn't think it was standard AmE
>>usage.
>>
>I don't think it is either, though I suppose it could become so.  Seems to
>have very limited use, and in my group semi-humorous-- bread only?
>"boughten" as opposed to home-made, back in the days when we made our own..
>I dont recall ever hearing it used routinely/seriously  with any other noun.
>A boughten car?  A boughten puppy/kitten? No no no.
>
>But even as long ago as the 40s, kids in my grade-school class were using it
>as the past part. of buy, which of course gave the teachers apoplexy.
My wife used to use it more often than she does now, but she still
sniffs at "store-boughten" cakes, which are inferior to the products
of her kitchen. She's from Blaine, MN. I have sister-in-law in Iowa
City (originally from Bloomington, IL) who uses "boughten" regularly
and without any apparent self-consciousness.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                  Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

Man deth swa he byth thonne he mot swa he wile.
'A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.'

- Old English Proverb