The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #157667   Message #3725656
Posted By: Steve Shaw
23-Jul-15 - 06:01 PM
Thread Name: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
Had I thought you were in error I would have said so. In fact, "gotten" is not, as I read somewhere, an Americanism. It was a good old English word that fell out of use hundreds of years ago but which has continued to be used in American English. I can think of "ill-gotten gains" but of no other usage of the word in British English. As a typical Brit confronted by American English I was being a bit provocative, that's all. Mind you, PHJim, all this assumes that you are American. If you're British, and you use "gotten", it marks you out as being pretentious. But not wrong!