Here is something that really grates on me: the word gotten.
I found online (Bartleby.com, citing the American Heritage Book of English Usage) this opening paragraph to a piece on the word:
"There is no such word as gotten,” an irritated reader recently wrote to The Boston Globe Magazine, objecting to the use of the word by a usage commentator, who should have known better. The notion that gotten is illegitimate has been around for over 200 years and refuses to die. The word itself is much older than the criticism against it.
Newburyport author Anne Easter Smith recently pointed out a quote attributed to her and said she was sure she hadn't said precisely that because she never uses the word "gotten" (which was in the quote).
Smith was born and raised in England, where the word has mostly passed out of usage, she (and the entry on Bartleby.com) notes.
So I read this opening to a small piece in today's Daily News and cringed: Just weeks after being relieved of her town planner duties in Newbury, Judy Tymon has gotten a new job.
Sounds really cumbersome, doesn't it? But is it also wrong?
"Gotten" is the past participle of "get." Again, from the Book of English Usage: Got often implies current possession, where gotten usually suggests the process of obtaining. I haven’t got any money suggests that you are broke. I haven’t gotten any money suggests that you have not been paid for your efforts.
So ... if Tymon has secured the job, does that mean she's got it? Yes. BUT, the English language being as complicated as it is, there is also the perfect aspect tense (a combination of some form of the verb "to have" and the active verb's past participle), which allegedly draws attention to the consequences generated by a person's action.
In that sense, and in the context used, "has gotten" is correct ... I guess. I would think the consequences came when the Newbury Selectmen gave her the boot.
Right or wrong, it still grates on me, though. I like lovely, flowing sentence constructions ... "Just weeks after being relieved of her town planning duties in Newbury, Judy Tymon can give Newbury the proverbial ..." uh-oh, better not go down that road!
Do you think whoever wrote/edited that piece gave it this much thought?
Tymon, by the way, will be town planner in North Andover.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
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4 comments:
Check www.grammarphobia.com/grammar.html before determining you have gotten a handle on this.
Comity
P.S., Of course, grammatical inference or preference aside, it is clearly more important that any information a reporter (or blogger) has gotten has been accurately collected, recollected (and quoted) before the post (or riposte).
P.S.S., Best to Judy Tymon in her own "new post."
Thanks, but I don't see anything on there that contradicts what I said in the post, so ... what's your point?
It's much more instructive (and helpful) to tell me what's wrong with what I wrote than to simply refer me to a random website, especially since I can't see where it refutes anything I wrote.
Methinks you are referring to some other post, on another blog ...
The simplest way to fix the DN sentence is to simply drop the "gotten". The resulting sentence is unambiguous.
True enough! Or, as I probably really would have written it myself: Former Newbury Town Planner Judy Tymon has a new job. Just months after ... blah blah ... Tymon takes up her duties as planner for the town of North Andover on (insert appropriate date or timeframe). Or something very much like that, since the news "Heard Around Town" is the job, not the controversy surrounding her departure from Newbury.
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