In Shakespeareās Henry VI, Part II, a messenger breathlessly announces to the king that, āJack Cade hath gotten London bridgeā. Hold this late 16th-century text in mind as we fast forward to last week when Martin Kettle, associate editor and columnist at the Guardian in the UK, was seen to suggest in an opinion piece that, if King Charles has pushed the boundaries of neutrality, such as with his speech to open the new Canadian parliament, he has so far āgotten away with itā.
In a letter published the next day, a reader asked teasingly if this use of āgottenā ā and another writerās reference to a āfaucetā ā were signs the Guardian had fallen into line with Donald Trumpās demand that news agencies adopt current US terminology, such as referring to the āGulf of Americaā.
Another, who wrote to me separately, had first seen the article in the print edition and expected subeditors (or copy editors, if you wish) would eventually catch up and remove āgottenā, which āis not a word in British Englishā. She was surprised to find the online version not only unchanged but with the phrase repeated in the headline.
⦠and I would have gotten away with it, too, if not for you pesky kids and your mangy dog.
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Chocolate and peanut butter.
Ah yes, Shakespeare. Americaās first and finest playwright. I hope the British can remove his influence from their language.
You have not truly experienced Shakespeare until youāve heard it in the original Klingon.
I really enjoy the scene where Titus Adronicus uses his batāleth to defend the honor of his house. Using the entrails of his daughterās attackers to make gagh was inspired.
Iām relatively certain David Warner played Adronicus at some point.
I wonāt concede any part of American English until they start pronouncing āaluminumā instead of āaluminiumā.
We found the element, so we got to name it, and it doesnāt matter if it breaks with the naming convention that was already established.
That misses the whole part of the article.
I can launch into a tirade using Southern English, but I choose not to. Nana was English (youāll note that I sometimes donāt lump it into the UK), so when I was up in Seattle visiting, I heard āaluminiumā a lot.
āHereās,ā as my college roommate would say, āthis about that.ā Itās inconsistent with other elements on the periodic table, sure. We donāt speak of āsodumā or any such nonsense. Caesesum would be a terrible idea to throw into a lake.
Itās just customary. We donāt have the same size pints, either, but no oneās up in arms.
Itās just a weird thing I have now that Iām a chemistry major. š¤£
I love my friends and family across the pond.
I often pull out that linguistically, my Appalachian dialect of English is closer to Elizabethan English than anything else spoken today. š
In the end, it doesnāt really matter to anyone except pedants.
Sodinium
āAluminumā was coined before āaluminiumā was.
Youāve gotten to be kidding⦠/s
As an English as an n-th language speaker, Iām much less picky about regional dialects, and tend to bunch them all up together⦠then rely on autocorrect ā or the occasional Google search ā to pick up on slang and regionalisms.
From a correlation to Spanish/Latin tenses, and the etymology of āgot + -enā, I got the impression that āgottenā was closer to a strictly pluscuamperfect meaning, with āgotā being a more simplified replacement for all past participles.
Does that make any sense?