Re: USAGE: gotten, boughten

Eli Ewing writes:
 > various people said:
 > >>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.
 >
 > boughten is another word I commonly use as a past participle (that is, on
 > those rare occasions I use past participles).  Gotten, boughten.  Not sure
 > about drunken - I can't remember using that except for an adjective.  I've
 > never used (usen?) gotten or boughten as an adjective.
 >
 > the dictionary folks seem to think that forms like gotten and boughten are
 > going out of use.  perhaps they're in that strange limbo between "old, but
 > still acceptable" and "what century do you live in?" and the direction to
 > which they lean depends (of course) largely on where you are in the country.
 >
 > FWIW, my teachers in middle and high school always taught us to use "got" and
 > "bought" as p.p.'s.  I think they sound funny.
 >
 > Eli

I can't say I've ever heard anyone use "boughten" in any sense in my
entire life.  Of course, BrE doesn't use "gotten" either, but we're
aware that it's used in some dialacts, and can understand it... this
doesn't apply to "boughten", at least as far as I'm concerned.  What
would you describe your dialect as?  If you started talking like that
around here, you'd definitely be in the "what century do you live in?"
category.

Of course, anything that's ungrammatical in one's own dialect is
likely to sound funny.

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