That’s an interesting question. British people—some of them (and not all Americans, apparently) do use ‘gotten’, but seeing them use it in print will destroy some readers’ suspension of disbelief. Truth or plausibility?
It seems to me that it would add versimilitude to have some British characters use more Americanisms than others, but that might be too subtle.
It bloody does include “gotten”! It’s just regarded as an “Americanism”, hence evil to the purity and beauty of the sacred English tongue [*].
British writers writing ’Merkin can be painful. I’m Australian and even I can tell.
[*] may not be 100% pure nor 100% sacred. Beauty may vary. Grammar may have settled in shipping.
I did two polls because of annoying constraints. The second one has comments, the first one may eventually get comments.
The results back up what you’ve said.
Thanks. At this point, since I did get this confirmed by someone British, I’m going to do a livejournal survey. There may be local variation.
In fiction, it would pretty much never be wrong to remove “gotten”, but it does come out of their mouths.
That’s an interesting question. British people—some of them (and not all Americans, apparently) do use ‘gotten’, but seeing them use it in print will destroy some readers’ suspension of disbelief. Truth or plausibility?
It seems to me that it would add versimilitude to have some British characters use more Americanisms than others, but that might be too subtle.