| Forum Home | ||||
| PC World Chat | ||||
| Thread ID: 144078 | 2017-07-03 01:26:00 | Dropping the "ing" | Roscoe (6288) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1436854 | 2017-07-05 22:55:00 | For the last 20 years I have been interested in languages. I just wish I had got (gotten) a better formal education. I'm currently reading Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue, which is a great read, but getting a bit out of date now being written in 1990. Its very interesting to see how words have evolved and changed. Like Kenji "Gotten" used to piss me off as it sounded like an Americanism, but Bill Bryon's book confirms what Terry says, that it was a Middle English word. |
Digby (677) | ||
| 1436855 | 2017-07-06 04:50:00 | Thanks Terry, you beat me to it. Refers to your reply to ken. |
Richard (739) | ||
| 1436856 | 2017-07-06 04:53:00 | That's a pirate phone, "Argh, argh." Excellent for Radio Hauraki ;) |
R2x1 (4628) | ||
| 1436857 | 2017-07-21 19:43:00 | It shouldn't really, firstly 'gotten' has an honourable history going back to Middle English, secondly the Americans use that word and 'got' in a subtly different ways that English English does not have. So in that sense American English has a richer meaning: www-personal.umich.edu Hmmmm but it is still not considered good grammar as such to use "gotten"? I remember I had to condition myself to stick to "got" instead of "gotten" many years ago when I was using it in the form of past participle. e.g. "Have you got the milk?" instead of "Have you gotten the milk?" |
Renmoo (66) | ||
| 1436858 | 2017-07-21 21:02:00 | I think Kiwis do use gotten a little in certain phrases.I would say got usually but if referring to something I've done sometime in the past gotten slips out quite naturally.E.g. "I got drunk last night" and "I've gotten drunk in the past" both seem quite natural to me. Or "I have got the milk now and I have gotten the milk before" | dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1436859 | 2017-07-21 21:19:00 | According to my wifes Dutch relatives there language goes through a major change every 7 years on average and they have to rewrite their dictionaries. I cann't confirm if this is true but its what they say. Lets not forget if the natives don't understand you then speak very loudly and very clearly in English until they do. |
gary67 (56) | ||
| 1436860 | 2017-07-21 23:45:00 | ..................snip............... Lets not forget if the natives don't understand you then speak very loudly and very clearly in English until they do. .....and that is how Pidgin English came about :) When I arrived in NZ some 40 years ago now from England, I was struck by the amount of Americanisms in everyday use, words, pronunciations, spellings, expressions etc. I suspect many if not most NZers don't even realise it.............they've gotten used to Americanisms. :banana The US influence seems to have been much stronger here and in OZ than in the UK. Now it seems most spell checks are American which will tend to accelerate the process. (Now there's a simple example, most English people will say pr'oh'cess with a long 'O', here it is mostly a short 'O') When I was a nipper at school, even the use of 'ok' was frowned upon as a ghastly American import :badpc: |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 1436861 | 2017-07-22 07:42:00 | OK Terry :banana Ken :thumbs: |
kenj (9738) | ||
| 1436862 | 2017-07-23 21:55:00 | When I studied English Linguistics at uni, one comment that my professor made which has stuck in my mind, is that English is an evolving language. But this is not English evolving at all - we are substituting Kiwi English for American English. The Americans have been speaking like that for about the last hundred years. We are losing our distinctive Kiwi way of speaking and are adopting the American way. That's what I am complaining about. Why do we want to speak like the Americans with their terrible way of bastardising the English language? |
Roscoe (6288) | ||
| 1436863 | 2017-07-23 22:42:00 | Why do we want to speak like the Americans with their terrible way of bastardising the English language? and yet its OK to bastardize pure English with so many words taken direct from other languages , or bastardize words from other languages to use in the ~pure~ English. Look at how many French words are somehow OK in the English language . Language evolves . Otherwise we'd all be speaking that weird English from 600 years ago, with its old fashioned spelling. :) |
1101 (13337) | ||
| 1 2 3 4 | |||||