[susan53]

Can anyone help with info on American usage of have got(ten) ?I need to know what would be the American equivalent of the following British English uses of have got. Would you use have got, have gotten or something completely different (what?).

1a. (On the phone) A : Can I speak to John ? B : Can you phone back later? He's just got into the bath.
1b. When I saw David he had just got back from Australia.

2a. Luigi's English has got a lot better recently.
2b. The tests showed that her eyesight had got considerably worse since the previous check-up.

3a. Hey everybody! I've got my exam results!
3b. When I saw John, he had just got his exam results.

4a. Look! I've got a new car.
4b. He said he had got a new car.

5a. I've got a headache.
5b. I've got two sisters.
5c. I've got red hair

Thanks!

[mesmark]

Quote susan53

1a. (On the phone) A : Can I speak to John ? B : Can you phone back later? He's just got into the bath.
1b. When I saw David he had just got back from Australia.

I'd say 'gotten' for both.

Quote susan53

2a. Luigi's English has got a lot better recently.
2b. The tests showed that her eyesight had got considerably worse since the previous check-up.

again 'gotten' for both.

Quote susan53

3a. Hey everybody! I've got my exam results!
3b. When I saw John, he had just got his exam results.

The first one, I'd say 'got' to mean 'possess' or 'gotten' to mean 'received'
The second one, I'd use 'gotten'

Quote susan53

4a. Look! I've got a new car.
4b. He said he had got a new car.

I'd say 'got' and 'gotten' for these two, respectively

Quote susan53

5a. I've got a headache.
5b. I've got two sisters.
5c. I've got red hair

all 'got'

Please don't ask why
but maybe as a general rule I say 'have got' to mean 'possess' and 'have gotten' to mean 'have received'

[mesmark]

In British English, would you say:

'I've got used to living abroad.'

or

'I've gotten used to living abroad.'

[susan53]

Thanks - that's really useful, and confirms some of my suspicions. Do other American speakers agree with Mark? Some Americans have told me that they would never use "got" and for the examples in 5 would always say simply I have red hair/two sisters etc. Any comments?

Quote mesmark

In British English, would you say:

'I've got used to living abroad.'

or

'I've gotten used to living abroad.'

Got - gotten is never used in Brit Eng.

Quote mesmark

Please don't ask why
but maybe as a general rule I say 'have got' to mean 'possess' and 'have gotten' to mean 'have received'

I have to work this up into a conference presentation and will also be posting an article on my site. I'll let you know when it's up.

[mesmark]

Quote susan53

Some Americans have told me that they would never use "got" and for the examples in 5 would always say simply I have red hair/two sisters etc. Any comments?

I've got a couple friends that would disagree.

I'm sure there are examples of something like that in movie scripts or songs that you could point to. What about a search on an American English corpus?

I've been abroad and teaching English (in many ways) for too long. Half of my English speaking friends over here are British. My American-esque may be slightly compromised, but we'll see if anyone else has something to add.

The article sounds pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to reading it.

[susan53]

Quote mesmark

What about a search on an American English corpus?

Excellent idea. Do you (or does anyone) know of a good free concordancer (corpus search) of American English? The one I always use is the British National Corpus which doesn't help me in this case. I can't find anything on Google.

[Whistleblower]

Bugger. I wish I found this out earlier. Gotten is a past participle of get. So in a present perfect context, you could use gotten (I've gotten some fresh apples). However, this is American English. The verb in British English is get (infinitive), got (past simple), got (past participle). Nonetheless, as British English is more influenced internationally it is more common to hear gotten in certain circumstances, especially when something is received, earnt, gained or won ("Value friendship for what there is in it, not for what can be gotten out of it").

I hope this helps.

[susan53]

The article is now up, but I'm afraid the US/UK differences didn't make it - the article went off in a different direction and they weren't really relevant. I'm saving them for another time!