Quote:
Originally Posted by SeaBookGuy
I hadn't realized that "gotten" was the older past participle of "get" until recently. I suppose the phrase "ill-gotten gains" is still used there though?.
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I grew up in England reading American science fiction novels and crime novels from about the age of eight, and for me gotten seems natural. It was only later at college that I was told in no uncertain terms by a few language snobs that the correct form in the UK is get got got, unless, as you said, gotten is part of a phrase.
The last time I looked at a number of British publishers guidelines, 15 years ago, I noticed a wide variety of style guides in use. One only wanted regular past tense verbs. Another only wanted irregular. One wanted single quotation marks, which seems more natural to me, and another wanted double quotation marks. One wanted words like realise spelled with a z, others with an s. I assumed that that was to make life easier for their American division's editors. In the end, so long as we can all understand each other it doesn't really matter, especially when the language is continually evolving.
I've just thought of another thing that sound odd to my ears, and that's the American pronunciation of the name Craig, which on a number of shows always sounds like Greg with a C at the front instead of a G, rather than "Crayg" with a long vowel sound. I don't know how that came about.