Morris Minor Owners Club

Well I never gotten past first grade and have for-gotten much of what I should have learnt so it has gotten me nowhere.

I had a little spare time; in fact I'd got ten minutes.

I’ve only got motivation to make a cup of tea, at that hour !!

''Gotten'' is one of those words that really irritates me too.

I was moved to send an email to one of the sports reporters of my local paper, who regularly uses this word in his match reports and other articles. I did get a courteous reply with an 'explanation' that he was brought up in South Africa where, apparently, it is in common use. He had also worked in America.

Like Myrtles Man has done, I was also given examples of 'gotten' as used in 16th and 17th century English.
I thanked him, politely, for his response but I could not help pointing out that we do not live in South Africa, America or indeed the 17th century!!

All my effort has been in vain however, as the reporter still regularly uses the wretched word.

I'm guessing then that you probably regard his salary as ill-gotten gains!

Gotten appears in the Concise Oxford Dictionary so it is a current word and has not been relegated to the past.

In my copy of the OED, gotten is labelled as the past or passive participle; archived or United States usage. Therefore it is either historic and not used in modern English, or it's a ghastly Americanism.

Can we call this particular a draw?

Is it just the relative age of the people posting here, or our higher standard of literacy, irrespective of age?

I'm sure it's a bit of both, Berni.

In my final years of my working life, I could not help myself (on occasions) pointing out grammatical errors, in both internal and external communications, to younger members of staff. Apart from the very occasional note of appreciation, I was usually greeted with those immortal words ''It doesn't matter......you know what I mean'' IT DOES MATTER!

I still laugh to myself every time I text or email my boys - both in their 40's - as they always tell me that they can spot my messages from 100 yards as they're the only ones with punctuation, capital letters for proper nouns etc. etc. To be fair to them, they both pretty much always respond to me in correctly written and punctuated English. How they write to other people, I've no idea.......

Can we call this particular a draw?

Agreed. A score draw, I think. Let's no go to a penalty shoot-out!

One final irritation.....How many times, in an advert, do you read that a classic car has had the 'breaks' upgraded or whatever? Grrrr! Even better: ''The car starts, drives and breaks''. The vendor is not exactly 'selling' it to me with that parting shot.

I'm not sure that it was intended but this thread has exorcised a few pent up demons! Enjoyed it immensely, as I was beginning to think it was just me!

Your ‘final’ irritation is in danger of starting things up again !

Now breaks is an old word - used to describe the breaks/brakes on early railway wagons. Early railways did not have passenger carrying wagons only wagons/chaldrons.
Discussion regarding the use of the word breaks or brakes goes way back on this web site - even BMC Ecosse joined in the discussion when someone persisted in the use of breaks instead of brakes.
Latterly the use of the word brakes has become common usage for the means of retarding the movement of a vehicle.

Another Yank term is MATH, the next time I hear "Do the Math" on TV, the coffee table is going to rapidly connect with it!

Either Mathematic's or Math's at School, mass if suffer with a lisp....no idea what Massamatics is?

Becoming less tolerant of things, phone up company's & after a while a voice says "your call is important to us", if it's THAT important, hire more staff & don't keep me waiting for so long!
Also, hearing "contact us on our website" whilst waiting on the phone just as bad, main gripe simply down to being unable to speak to someone,

Have you tried different tablets Chris.

POMMReg wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:40 pm "your call is important to us"

Worse is when the looping audio has a decided pause and click like someone picking up the phone - at last! you foolishly think, my call is being answered...

I used to correct a friends spelling for him, naturally he was an English teacher Luckily he never picked up on my poor grammar and punctuation

les wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 4:44 pm Have you tried different tablets Chris.

Don't have a choice with what I have,

You can get some that take you back to the sixties !

les wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 1:10 pm You can get some that take you back to the sixties !

I'll get my doctor to prescribe me some '70s tablets.

——— and if you wear your flairs to the surgery, you’ll have cracked it

I saw a kestrel chasing a pigeon .He got away but boy was his heart pounding.It can get your goat when people go off topic.It gets mine.Also did you know common sense is now a super power.

My goat was pigeon holed when chased by a Riley Kestrel.

I dread to think what garment Les was wearing, "Flairs"?